THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


THE  LIBRARY 
JOHIVERSITY  OP  n  *  T 
LOS 

THE  LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
LOS  ANGELES 


THE  MARITIME  HISTORY  OF 
MASSACHUSETTS 


THE  MARlTIMh  HIS 


Shipping  at  Boston  Wharves  in  1832 


THE  MARITIME  HISTORY 
OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

1783—1 860 
BY 

SAMUEL  ELIOT  MORISON 


WITH  ILLUSTRATIONS 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

Clir  fUbersibr  press  <Tambritiijr 
1921 


COPYRIGHT,    1921,    BY    SAMUEL    E.    MORISON' 
ALL    RIGHTS    RESERVED 


THIS  LARGE-PAPER  EDITION  CONSISTS  OF  THREE 
HUNDRED  AND  EIGHTY-FIVE  NUMBERED  COPIES, 
OF  WHICH  THREE  HUNDRED  AND  FIFTY  ARE  TO 
BE  SOLD.  THIS  IS  NUMBER.  AJ..  .  . 


College 
Library 

HF 

3161 

M5M8 


IN  MEMORIAM 

N.  G.  H. ,  1875-1907 
T.  C  D. ,  1885-1918 
Q.  S.  G.,  1891-1918 


PREFACE 

Here  is  no  catalogue  of  ships,  reader,  nor  naval  chronicle, 
but  a  story  of  maritime  enterprise;  of  the  shipping,  sea- 
borne commerce,  whaling,  and  fishing  belonging  to  one 
American  commonwealth.  I  have  chosen  to  catch  the  story 
at  half  flood,  when  Massachusetts  vessels  first  sought  Far- 
Eastern  waters,  and  to  stay  with  it  only  so  long  as  wind 
and  sail  would  serve.  For  to  one  who  has  sailed  a  clip- 
per ship,  even  in  fancy,  all  later  modes  of  ocean  carriage 
must  seem  decadent. 

Having  written  these  pages  for  your  enjoyment,  I  have 
not  burdened  them  with  citations;  but,  having  discovered 
much  sunken  historical  treasure,  and  taken  of  it  but  spar- 
ingly, I  have  added  some  sailing  directions  and  soundings 
thereto  in  a  bibliography.  Therein  also,  that  this  preface 
may  be  short,  I  have  thanked  the  many  persons  who  have 
aided  me  in  the  search.  But  I  cannot  close  without  par- 
ticular acknowledgment  to  Captain  Arthur  H.  Clark,  au- 
thor of  "  The  Clipper  Ship  Era,1'  for  bearing  with  my 
constant  demands  on  his  time,  patience,  and  memory;  and 
to  Dr.  Octavius  T.  Howe,  who  placed  freely  at  my  dis- 
posal the  results  of  many  years'  research  on  the  Argonauts 
of  forty-nine. 

S.  E.  MORISON 


Harvard  University 
February  1921 


CONTENTS 

I.  COAST  AND  SEA  I 

II.  THE  COLONIAL  BACKGROUND  8 

III.  REVOLUTION  AND  RECONSTRUCTION  27 

IV.  PIONEERS  OF  THE  PACIFIC  41 
V.  THE  NORTHWEST  FUR  TRADE  52 

VI.  THE  CANTON  MARKET  64 

VII.  THE  SALEM  EAST  INDIES  79 

VIII.  SHIPS  AND  SEAMEN  96 

IX.  MERCHANTS  AND  MANSIONS  119 

X.  THE  SACRED  CODFISH  134 

XI.  NEWBURYPORT  AND  NANTUCKET  151 

XII.  FEDERALISM  AND  NEUTRAL  TRADE  160 

XIII.  EMBARGO  AND  WAR  187 

XIV.  THE  PASSING  OF  SALEM  213 
XV.  THE  HUB  OF  THE  UNIVERSE  225 

XVI.  SHIPS  AND  SEAMEN  IN  SOUTHERN  SEAS  253 

XVII.  CHINA  AND  THE  EAST  INDIES  273 

XVIII.  MEDITERRANEAN  AND  BALTIC  286 

XIX.  CAPE  COD  AND  CAPE  ANN  300 

XX.  THE  WHALERS  314 

XXI.  OH!  CALIFORNIA  327 

XXII.  THE  CLIPPER  SHIP  339 

XXIII.  CONCLUSION  365 

APPENDIX:  STATISTICS  375 

BIBLIOGRAPHY  379 

INDEX  391 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

SHIPPING  AT  BOSTON  WHARVES,  IN  1832 

Colored  Frontispiece 

From  a  painting  by  Robert  Salmon,  owned  by  Henry  R. 
Dalton,  Esq. 

CHART  OF  CAPE  ANN  AND  THE  NORTH  SHORE,  1800         2 

From  A  New  Edition  Much  Enlarged  of  the  Second  Part 
of  the  North  American  Pilot  for  New  England,  by  Robert 
Laurie  and  James  Whittle. 

CHART  OF  THE  COAST  OF  MASSACHUSETTS  SOUTH  OF 
BOSTON,  1800  10 

From  the  North  American  Pilot. 

LETTER-OF-MARQUE  SHIP  BETHEL  OF  BOSTON,  1748       20 

From  a  contemporary  painting  in  the  Massachusetts  His- 
torical Society. 

PAUL  REVERE 's  ENGRAVING  OF  BOSTON  IN  1774         28 

From  the  Royal  American  Magazine. 

CHART  OF  BOSTON  HARBOR  IN  THE  i8ra  CENTURY  32 

From  Capt.  Cyprian  Southack  's  Survey  of  the  Sea  Coast 
from  New  York  to  the  I.  Cape  Breton,  1735. 

SAMUEL  SHAW  42 

From  the  portrait  by  John  Johnston,  owned  by  George 
Shaw,  Esq. 

CAPTAIN  GRAY  OF  THE  COLUMBIA  AT  WHAMPOA,  1792       46 

SHIP  COLUMBIA  ATTACKED  BY  INDIANS  AT  JUAN  DE 
FUCA  STRAIT  46 

This  and  the  preceding  are  from  the  drawings  by  George 
Davidson,  who  accompanied  the  Columbia  on  her  second 
voyage;  owned  by  Dr.  Edward  L.  Twombly. 

THOMAS  HANDASYD  PERKINS  50 

From  a  portrait  by  Sully  in  the  Boston  Athenaeum. 

CAPTURE  OF  A  NOR'WESTMAN  BY  INDIANS  56 

The  ship  Boston.  From  the  Frontispiece  of  "Jewitt's 
Narrative,"  1816. 

THE  HONGS  OF  OLD  CANTON  64 

From  a  painting  in  the  Peabody  Museum,  Salem. 

xi 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

THE  PAGODA  ANCHORAGE,  WHAMPOA  64 

From  a  painting  owned  by  the  Historical  Society  of  Old 
Newbury. 

CAPTAIN  WILLIAM  STURGIS  70 

From  a  photograph  owned  by  Dr.  William  Sturgis  Bigelow. 

CAPTAIN  JOHN  SUTER  70 

From  a  miniature  owned  by  Rev.  John  W.  Suter. 

SLOOP  jUNION  ENTERING  BOSTON  HARBOR  AFTER  HER 
VOYAGE  ROUND  THE  WORLD  76 

From  a  watercolor  by  Captain  Boit  in  his  Journal  of  the 
Voyage,  at  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society. 

SALEM  MARINE  SOCIETY  CERTIFICATE  OF  MEMBERSHIP     82 

Representing  scenes  in  Salem  Harbor,  about  1790. 

CAPTAIN  JACOB  CROWNINSHIELD  AND  CAPTAIN  BEN- 
JAMIN CARPENTER  92 

From  portraits  in  the  Peabody  Museum. 

Two  SALEM  SHIP  PORTRAITS  BY  ANTOINE  Roux  OF 
MARSEILLES;  THE  FRANCIS  AND  THE  AMERICA  100 

In  the  Peabody  Museum. 

NATHANIEL  BOWDITCH  114 

From  an  unfinished  portrait  by  Gilbert  Stuart,  owned  by 
James  H.  Bowditch,  Esq. 

THE  PIERCE-NICHOLS  HOUSE,  SALEM  120 

Exterior,  and   Mantel   in  the  Adam  parlor.   From  photo- 
graphs by  Frank  Cousins. 

CHARLES  BULFINCH  124 

From  a  portrait  by  Mather  Brown,   1786,  in  the  Massa- 
chusetts Historical  Society. 

SUMMER  STREET  AND  THE  NEW  SOUTH  CHURCH,  BOS- 
TON 128 

From  a  lithograph  owned  by  the  Bostonian  Society. 

JAMES  PERKINS  132 

From  a  portrait  by  Gilbert  Stuart  in  the  Boston  Athe- 
naeum. 

MARBLEHEAD  FIREBOARD  REPRESENTING  TWO  '  HEEL- 
TAPPER  '  FISHING  SCHOONERS  COMING  TO  ANCHOR 
INSIDE  THE  NECK  138 

Painted  about  1800;  in  the  Marblehead  Historical  Society. 
xii 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

A  TOPSAIL  SCHOONER  OF  MARBLEHEAD  IN  FOREIGN 
TRADE  1796  138 

From  a  watercolor  of  the  schooner  Raven  in  the  Marble- 
head  Historical  Society. 

A  WATERFRONT  SCENE  AT  DUXBURY,  ABOUT  THE 
YEAR  1800  144 

From  a  painting  now  in  the  Harrison  Gray  Otis  house, 
2  Lynde  Street,  Boston. 

NANTUCKET  HARBOR  IN  1810  158 

From  an  engraving  in  Dennie's  Portfolio,  1814,  after  a 
drawing  by  J.  Samson. 

CAPTAIN  JOHN  BAILEY,  OF  MARBLEHEAD  172 

From  a  portrait  owned  by  Mrs.  E.  C.  Doane. 

CAPTAIN  ELIJAH  COBB,  OF  BREWSTER  172 

From  a  portrait  owned  by  Mrs.  A.  S.  Cobb. 

A  TYPICAL  NEUTRAL  TRADER  178 

Schooner  Lidia  of  Newburyport  entering  Marseilles,  1807. 
From  a  painting  by  Cammillieri,  owned  by  Mr.  Charles 
H.  Taylor,  Jr. 

SHIP  HERCULES  OF  SALEM  ENTERING  NAPLES,  1809        188 

From  a  painting  in  the  Peabody  Museum. 

SHIPS  OF  THE  LINE!  —  No  SHAVING  MILLS  196 

Federalist  ballot  for  the  election  of  1814,  in  the  Massa- 
chusetts Historical  Society. 

PRIVATEER  BRIG  GRAND  TURK   SALUTING  MAR- 
SEILLES, 1815  202 
From  a  painting  by  Antoine  Roux  in  the  Peabody  Museum. 

JOSEPH  PEABODY  214 

From  a  portrait  by  Charles  Osgood  in  the  Peabody  Museum. 

DlXCOVE  ON  THE  GOLD  COAST;  BRIG  HERALD  OF 
SALEM  APPROACHING  222 

From  a  watercolor  in  the  Peabody  Museum. 

BRIG  MERCURY  OF  BOSTON  ENTERING  ELSINORE 
ROADS,  1825  232 

From  a  painting  owned  by  H.  K.  Devereux,  Esq. 

PACKET  SHIP   EMERALD  OF  BOSTON,  PHILIP  Fox 
MASTER  232 

From  a  painting  owned  by  William  0.  Taylor,  Esq. 
xiii 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

STEAMBOAT  BANGOR  236 

From  a  painting  owned  by  F.  B.  C.  Bradlee,  Esq. 

A  GROUP  OF  BOSTON  MERCHANTS  IN  1854  240 

From  a  photograph  owned  by  Frederic  Cunningham,  Esq. 

A  SCENE  AT  THE  NAHANT  REGATTA  OF  1845  246 

From  a  painting  in  the  Eastern  Yacht  Club. 

FATHER  TAYLOR  250 

From  a  photograph  owned  by  the  Bostonian  Society. 

DEEP-SEA  TYPES  OF  THE  THIRTIES  256 

East-Indiaman  Columbiana,  built  at  Medford  in  1837, 
from  a  painting  by  Walters  owned  by  Mr.  Charles  H. 
Taylor,  Jr.  The  Merrimac-built  ship  Dromo  of  Boston, 
John  Devereux  master,  off  the  port  of  Marseilles  in  1836, 
from  a  painting  by  Antoine  Roux  fits,  owned  by  H.  K. 
Devereux,  Esq. 

BRIG   CLEOPATRA'S   BARGE   AS   ROYAL  HAWAIIAN 
YACHT  262 

From  a  drawing  by  Charles  S.  Stewart,  reproduced  in 
his  "Voyage  to  the  Pacific  Ocean." 

BILL  OF  HEALTH  OF  THE  CLEOPATRA'S  BARGE  266 

Owned  by  Rev.  John  W.  Suter. 

Two  BOSTON  EAST-!NDIAMEN  OF  1840  276 

Ship  Saracen  being  towed  into  Table  Bay,  and  ship  Car- 
natic  in  a  Hurricane,  from  paintings  owned  by  H.  K.  Dev- 
ereux, Esq. 

EAST-INDIAMEN    LOADING   ICE   AT    CHARLESTOWN, 
MASSACHUSETTS  284 

From  'a  photograph  taken  about  1870,  owned  by  Joseph 
Grafton  Minot,  Esq. 

BARQUE  OSMANLI  LYING  AT  SMYRNA  292 

From  a  painting  by  Raffael  Corsini,  1851,  owned  by  T.  G. 
Frothingham,  Esq. 

BRIG  WATER  WITCH  OF  BOSTON  LEAVING  THE  MOLE 
OF  MALAGA,  1833  292 

From  a  painting  by  Francesco  Lengi,  owned  by  Captain 
Arthur  H.  Clark. 

PROVINCETOWN  IN  1839  300 

From  the  original  woodcut  block  used  in  Barber's  His- 
torical Collections,  lent  by  George  F.  Dow,  Esq. 

MACKEREL  SCHOONER  FRANK  ATWOOD  OF  WELL- 
FLEET  306 

From  a  painting  in  the  Marblehead  Historical  Society. 

xiv 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

BANKER  AND  CHEBACCO  BOAT  IN  GLOUCESTER 
HARBOR  306 

From  engraving  by  Fitz  Hugh  Lane,  about  1835.  Block 
lent  by  Fred  W.  Tibbets,  Esq. 

A  CAPE  COD  SHIPMASTER  AND  HIS  HOME  310 

Captain  Caleb  Sprague,  master  of  the  clipper  ship  Gravina, 
etc.,  and  his  cottage  at  Barnstable,  from  photographs 
owned  by  F.  W.  Sprague,  Esq. 

NEW  BEDFORD  IN  1839  314 

From  woodcut  block  lent  by  George  F.  Dow,  Esq. 

NEW  BEDFORD  WHALERS  STRIKE  A  POD  OF  WHALES      318 

From  colored  engraving  by  J.  Hill,  "A  Shoal  of  Sperm 
Whale  off  the  Island  of  Hawaii,  1833"  after  a  drawing  by 
Cornelius  B.  Hulsart,  who  was  aboard  one  of  the  ships. 
Owned  by  Allan  Forbes,  Esq. 

FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  WHALER  ISABELLA  OF  NEW 
BEDFORD  322 

For  July  21-23,  l83i.  Recorded  by  Joseph  Taber,  Jr. 
Owned  by  George  H.  Tripp,  Esq. 

A  FULL-BODIED  SHIP  AND  A  CLIPPER  SHIP  328 

Ship  Mary  Clover  and  Clipper  Ship  Wild  Ranger.   From 
'   paintings  formerly  in  the  Williams  Collection. 

PACKET-SHIP  DANIEL  WEBSTER  RESCUING  PASSEN- 
GERS FROM  THE  SHIP  UNICORN  332 

From  painting  formerly  in  the  Williams  Collection. 

THE  BEST  CHANCE  YET  FOR  CALIFORNIA!  336 

Poster  of  a  Forty-niner  emigrant  company,  owned  by  the 
Bostonian  Society. 

CLIPPER  SHIP  SURPRISE  IN  THE  ENGLISH  CHANNEL      340 

From  a  painting  owned  by  Mrs.  Philip  K.  Dumaresq. 

DONALD  McKAY  344 

From  an  engraving  owned  by  Mr.  Charles  H.  Taylor,  Jr. 

CENTRAL  AND  INDIA  WHARVES  IN  1857  348 

Photograph  taken  from  Josiah  Bradlee's  Counting  Room. 
Negative  owned  by  F.  B.  C.  Bradlee,  Esq. 

CAPTAIN  PHILIP  DUMARESQ  352 

From  a  crayon  portrait  by  Stagg,  1847;  owned  by  Mrs. 
George  Wheatland. 

CAPTAIN  JOSIAH  PERKINS  CRESSY  352 

Photograph  taken  during  the  Civil  War;  owned  by  S. 
Brown,  Esq. 

XV 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Two  BOSTON  BOYS  WHO  WENT  TO  SEA  IN  CLIPPER 
SHIPS  356 

i        Arthur  Hamilton  Clark,  aged  19,  when  second  mate  of  the 
Northern  Light,  1860;  and  Henry  Jackson  Sargent,  Jr.,  aged 
.  27,  master  of  the  Phantom,  1861.  From  photographs. 

CLIPPER  SHIP  SOVEREIGN  OF  THE  SEAS  360 

From  a  painting  formerly  in  the  Williams  Collection. 

CLIPPER  SHIP  WESTWARD  Ho!  360 

From  a  painting.  Negative  owned  by  Captain  Arthur  H. 
Clark. 

CLIPPER  SHIP  LIGHTNING  364 

From  a  painting  after  the  original  plans  by  Charles  Tor- 
rey,  Esq.,  and  owned  by  him. 

CLIPPER  SHIP  JAMES  BAINES  364 

From  a  lithograph  after  a  drawing  by  S.  Walters;  owned 
by  Captain  Arthur  H.  Clark. 

BOSTON  HARBOR  IN  CLIPPER-SHIP  DAYS  368 

From  an  engraving  by  C.  Mottram;  owned  by  Allan 
Forbes,  Esq. 

CLIPPER  SHIP  FLYING  CLOUD  372 

Photograph  of  a  model  after  the  original  plans,  made  by 
the  H.  E.  Boucher.  Company,  New  York,  under  the  di- 
rection of  Captain  Arthur  H.  Clark.  Owned  by  Frederick 
C.  Fletcher,  Esq. 


THE  MARITIME  HISTORY  OF 
MASSACHUSETTS 


ESSEX  COUNTY  includes  Salem,  Marblehead,  Cape  Ann, 
Newburyport,  and  all  the  seacoast  north  of  Boston  and  its 
suburbs.  Hingham  and  the  South  Shore  (except  Cohasset) 
are  in  Plymouth  County,  which  also  includes  a  few  towns 
on  Buzzard's  Bay.  Barnstable  County  is  synonymous  with 
Cape  Cod.  Bristol  County  includes  New  Bedford,  Fair- 
haven,  and  the  Taunton  valley.  Nantucket  is  a  separate 
county,  and  Martha's  Vineyard  and  the  Elizabeth  Islands 
constitute  the  "  County  of  Dukes  County."  It  will  be  un- 
derstood that  the  term  "  town,"  in  this  book,  has  no  urban 
connotation,  being  used  in  its  New  England  sense  of  a  terri- 
torial and  political  unit. 

When  three  dimensions  are  given  for  a  vessel,  they  are 
length  on  deck,  greatest  breadth  of  beam,  and  depth  of 
hold. 


THE  MARITIME  HISTORY 

OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

1783—1860 

CHAPTER  I 

COAST  AND  SEA 

MASSACHUSETTS  has  a  history  of  many  moods,  every 
one  of  which  may  be  traced  in  the  national  character 
of  America.  By  chance,  rather  than  design,  this  short 
strip  of  uninviting  coast-line  became  the  seat  of  a 
great  experiment  in  colonization,  self-government,  and 
religion.  For  a  generation,  Massachusetts  shared  with 
her  elder  sister,  Virginia,  leadership  in  the  Ameri- 
can Revolution.  For  another  generation,  with  her  off- 
spring Connecticut,  she  opposed  a  static  social  system 
to  the  ferment  of  revolutionary  France.  With  the  world 
peace  of  1815  she  quickened  into  new  life,  harnessed 
her  waterfalls  to  machine  industry,  bred  statesmen, 
seers,  and  poets,  generated  radical  and  revolutionary 
thought.  The  Civil  War  rubbed  smooth  her  rough 
corners,  sapped  her  vitality  to  preserve  the  Union  and 
build  the  Great  West,  and  drew  into  the  vacuum  new 
faiths  and  peoples. 

Through  every  phase  and  period,  save  the  last, 
breathes  a  rugged  faith  and  blows  the  east  wind.  For 
two  hundred  years  the  Bible  was  the  spiritual,  the  sea 
the  material  sustenance  of  Massachusetts.  The  pulse 
of  her  life-story,  like  the  surf  on  her  coast-line,  beat 
once  with  the  nervous  crash  of  storm-driven  waves  on 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

granite  rock;  but  now  with  the  soothing  pour  of 
ground-swell  on  golden  sands.  Now  and  again  a 
greater  wave  rolls  in  with  crested  menace,  but  ends  in 
harmless  curl  of  foam  on  shelving  beach. 

Massachusetts  proper  (for  I  do  not  speak  of  her 
first-born,  Maine,  whose  maritime  history  deserves  a 
special  volume)  has  a  coast-line  of  some  seven  hundred 
and  fifty  miles,  following  the  high-water  mark.  It 
begins  "three  English  miles  to  the  northward"  of  a 
"great  river  there  commonly  called  Monomack  river, 
alias  Merrimack  river,"  as  King  Charles  I  determined. 
The  Merrimac  now  means  whirring  spindles,  sordid 
tenements,  and  class  struggles.  But  for  two  centuries 
and  more  its  tidal  waters,  flowing  between  towns  that 
bear  the  old-world  names  of  Salisbury,  Amesbury, 
Haverhill,  and  Newbury,  midwifed  hundreds  of  noble 
vessels;  and  Newburyport  was  the  mart  for  a  goodly 
portion  of  interior  New  England. 

From  the  river  mouth  to  Cape  Ann,  the  long  sandy 
finger  of  Plum  Island  protects  a  region  sung  by 
Whittier,  where 

Broad  meadows  reached  out  seaward,  the  tidal  creeks  between, 
And  hills  rolled  wave-like  inland,  with  oaks  and  walnuts  green. 

Here  even  the  agriculture  was  maritime ;  not  creaking 
wains,  but  broad-beamed  "gundalows"  collected  the 
harvest  of  salt  hay.  Yet  seagoing  vessels  could  make 
their  way  up  to  Rowley  and  Essex,  and  the  white  spires 
of  old  Ipswich. 

Once  past  the  gleaming  dunes  of  Castle  Neck,  and 
across  Squam  River  (which  may  lead  us,  if  we  will,  to 
Gloucester's  back  door),  we  are  fairly  on  Cape  Ann. 
This  rocky  fist  of  Massachusetts,  like  the  slender, 
sandy  arm  of  Cape  Cod,  has  led  whole  generations  of 
boys  afishing.  Hotels  and  villas  and  granite  quarries 

2 


iSi'3  *W®& 


Charfo fi$yi  3  »^. 


Wemou^i 


COAST  AND  SEA 

now  crowd  its  shores,  once  white  with  drying  codfish, 
and  more  funnels  than  sails  now  break  the  horizon. 
But  on  its  seaward  thrust  you  may  still  find  spots 
where,  but  for  the  wail  of  whistling  buoy,  and  the  twin 
light  towers  of  Thatcher's,  nothing  has  changed  since 
the  "spectral  host,  defying  stroke  of  steel  and  aim  of 
gun,"  assaulted  the  Cape  Ann  garrison. 

Cape  Cod  and  Cape  Ann  are  the  two  horns  of 
Massachusetts  Bay;  two  giant  limbs  thrown  seaward, 
like  the  wings  of  a  fish-weir,  to  guide  sea-borne  com- 
merce into  Boston's  fruitful  embrace.  But  Cape  Ann 
and  its  southern  base  (together  called  the  North  Shore 
of  Massachusetts)  contains  certain  pockets,  Glouces- 
ter and  Salem  and  Marblehead,  which  for  two  centu- 
ries managed  to  cull  from  the  choicest  of  the  catch. 
Neither  imposing  nor  spectacular,  this  North  Shore; 
yet  the  massed  and  multi-colored  rocks,  with  bits  of 
beach  or  shingle  nestling  between,  have  a  subtle  charm 
that  every  summer  attracts  thousands  of  city-dwellers 
from  all  parts  of  America.  Factory  chimneys  and 
yachting  centers  have  now  replaced  the  fishing  vil- 
lages; Italian  gardens  and  palaces  blot  out  even  the 
memory  of  the  rugged  seashore  farms. 

In  the  lap  of  Massachusetts  Bay  sprawls  Boston; 
long  since  outgrown  the  small  rocky  peninsula  of  her 
birth,  and  ever  in  need  of  a  new  suit  of  clothes.  Point 
Shirley  at  the  north,  Hull  at  the  south,  and  the  rocky 
barrier  of  the  Brewsters,  as  tough  as  the  Puritan  elder 
whose  name  they  bear,  shield  a  gracious,  island-dotted 
bay,  and  a  deep,  landlocked  inner  harbor.  The  Blue 
Hills  of  Milton,  unchanged  from  the  day  they  caught 
the  first  white  man's  searching  gaze,  make  a  serene 
background  to  the  nervous,  bustling  activity  of  the 
modern  seaport. 

With  Nantasket  Beach  begins  the  South  Shore, 

3 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

ending  at  Plymouth  in  the  armpit  of  Cape  Cod.  In 
Cohasset  the  granite  skeleton  of  Massachusetts  pro- 
trudes for  the  last  time,  making  a  small  fishing  har- 
bor behind  a  cluster  of  tide-swept  rocks,  from  which 
Minot's  Light,  flashing  one-four-three,  warns  shipping. 
Beyond  we  cross  the  southern  boundary  of  the  Massa- 
chusetts-Bay Colony,  and  enter  the  "Old  Colony," 
as  it  is  still  called,  of  Plymouth  Plantation.  This 
South  Shore  is  a  complete  contrast  to  the  North,  even 
in  climate;  a  succession  of  barrier-beaches  in  flattish 
curves,  backed  by  salt  marshes  and  wooded  country 
with  gentle  contours.  There  is  another  tiny  harbor  at 
Scituate,  between  which  township  and  Marshfield  the 
North  River  admits  a  thin  stream  of  tidewater  well 
inland.  Then  come  Salt-House  or  Duxbury  Beach  and 
the  Gurnet,  Saquish  and  Long  Beach,  protecting  Ply- 
mouth Bay  from  the  Atlantic  rollers.  But  Plymouth 
Bay,  a  series  of  tortuous  channels  between  shoals  and 
grassy  flats,  could  not  serve  a  great  trading  commu- 
nity. In  compensation,  Pilgrim  grit  and  native  white 
oak  made  of  its  shores  and  the  North  River  banks, 
a  great  shipbuilding  center. 

Once  past  the  wooded  bluffs  of  Manomet,  we  are  on 
the  biceps  of  "th'  Cape,"  Cape  Cod.  East  twenty-five 
miles  into  the  Atlantic,  then  north  by  west  another 
score,  pushes  this  frail  spit  of  sand,  ending  in  a  skinny 
finger  forever  beckoning  seaward  the  sons  of  Massa- 
chusetts. The  Cape  is  unique,  this  side  of  Brittany. 
It  has  been  the  greatest  nursery  of  seamen  in  North 
America,  but  its  offspring  have  had  to  sail  from  other 
ports  than  their  own.  Save  for  the  great  haven  within 
its  finger-tip,  the  Cape  has  no  harbor  fit  for  larger  than 
fishing  vessels;  and  Provincetown,  in  its  ocean-walled 
isolation,  could  never  become  a  center  of  commerce. 

The  Bay  side  of  Cape  Cod  is  to-day  the  most  un- 

4 


COAST  AND  SEA 

spoiled  maritime  section  of  the  Massachusetts  main- 
land. From  the  car-shops  of  Sagamore  to  the  artist- 
fishing  colony  at  Provincetown,  not  one  smoking  fac- 
tory chimney,  and  only  a  handful  of  summer  palaces, 
mar  the  simplicity  of  beach,  dune,  and  marsh.  Shin- 
gle-sided cottages  of  the  ancient  style,  shell-white 
or  weather-rusted,  line  the  sandy  roads;  slim  spires 
spindling  up  from  a  mass  of  foliage  betray  a  village; 
low  pine-clad  hills  break  the  sky-line.  As  we  proceed 
northward,  the  Cape  grows  wilder  and  bleaker,  up 
to  the  wind-swept  highlands  of  Truro,  the  topgallant 
forecastle  of  Massachusetts. 

At  Chatham,  on  the  "back  side"  of  the  Cape,  we 
reach  once  more  the  summer  estates'  "No  Trespass- 
ing" signs,  which  hardly  end  before  our  circuit  of  the 
Massachusetts  coast  is  concluded  at  Westport.  Nar- 
ragansett  Bay  belongs  to  Rhode  Island ;  but  one  of  its 
tidal  tributaries,  the  Taunton  River,  has  from  time 
immemorial  sent  herring,  shad,  and  alewives  up  into 
the  heart  of  the  Old  Colony;  and  in  times  historic 
floated  down  ships. 

Detached  from  the  mainland,  annexed  to  Massa- 
chusetts only  in  1691,  since  held  by  the  slenderest  of 
political  ties,  is  a  diadem  of  island  jewels  —  the  Eliza- 
beth Islands  and  Martha's  Vineyard ;  Chappaquiddick 
and  Muskeget,  Tuckernuck  and  Nantucket.  Hardly 
a  spot  on  the  New  England  coast  lacks  passionate 
devotees;  but  the  worshipers  of  Nantucket  form  a  cult 
of  positive  fanatics.  Anchored  on  the  edge  of  the  Gulf 
Stream,  this  bit  of  terminal  moraine  has  a  unique 
climate,  flora,  landscape,  and  population.  On  her 
south  shore  endlessly  breaking,  the  southwest  swells 
impart  their  surge  to  the  long  grasses  of  Nantucket's 
flower-starred  moors.  Under  their  lee  nestles  the  one 
unspoiled  seaport  town  of  New  England;  a  town  in 

5 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

which  every  house  built  before  1840  —  and  few  were 
not  —  was  sired  out  of  the  sea.  For  this  island,  peo- 
pled by  Quaker  exiles  from  Puritan  persecution, 
created  that  deep-sea  whaling,  whose  peculiar  blend  of 
enterprise,  dare-deviltry,  and  ruthlessness  forms  one 
of  the  most  precious  memories  of  our  maritime  past. 
New  Bedford,  and  the  minor  ports  of  Buzzard's  Bay, 
were  but  mainland  colonies  of  Nantucket;  although 
in  course  of  time,  like  the  colonies  of  ancient  Greece, 
they  surpassed  their  mother  state. 

Yet  for  all  this  wealth  of  coast-line  and  abundance 
of  good  harbors,  maritime  Massachusetts  enjoyed  no 
natural  advantage  over  other  sections  of  the  Atlantic 
coast.  Cape  Breton  and  Newfoundland  are  nearer  the 
Grand  Banks;  hundred-harbored  Maine  offers  better 
anchorage.  Chesapeake  Bay  is  more  deeply  indented, 
more  richly  supplied  with  agricultural  wealth,  more 
centrally  placed,  and  seldom  obstructed  by  snow  or 
fog.  No  great  river  comparable  to  the  St.  Lawrence, 
the  Hudson,  or  the  Delaware,  tapping  the  wealth  of 
a  mighty  interior,  makes  a  great  trading  city  on  the 
Massachusetts  coast  inevitable.  Boston  has  always 
felt  this  handicap;  her  persistent  place  among  the 
greater  American  cities,  in  spite  of  it,  is  a  miracle  of 
human  enterprise.  The  back  country,  limited  by  a 
political  frontier  in  the  north  and  a  mountain  barrier 
in  the  Berkshires,  produced  no  staple  to  compare 
with  those  of  the  middle  and  southern  colonies. 
Boston  is  two  hundred  miles  nearer  northern  Europe 
than  New  York:  but  Nova  Scotia  is  nearer  still. 
Boston  Harbor  freezes  but  once  a  generation:  but 
Massachusetts  Bay  in  sailing-ship  days  was  dangerous 
water  in  dirty  weather.  Its  irregular  bottom  gives  the 
lead-line  no  clue.  When  a  northeast  snowstorm  ob- 
scured Boston  Light,  a  mistake  of  a  quarter-point 

6 


COAST  AND  SEA 

fetched  up  many  a  good  ship  on  Cohasset  rocks  or 
the  Graves.  Before  the  days  of  cheap  chronometers, 
when  a  slight  mistake  in  longitude  meant  Nantucket 
South  Shoals,  vessels  from  the  West  Indies,  South 
America,  and  the  Orient  dared  approach  Boston  or 
Salem  only  by  the  long  d6tour  of  Vineyard  Sound, 
Nantucket  Sound,  and  the  back  side  of  the  Cape. 
Returning  East-Indiamen  were  sometimes  detained 
for  weeks  in  Wood's  Hole  or  Vineyard  Haven,  awaiting 
a  chance  to  weather  Monomoy  and  Pollock  Rip,  whilst 
fair  wind  and  sheltered  waters  pled  the  advantages  of 
New  York.  The  Pilgrims  began  to  agitate  for  a  Cape 
Cod  canal  as  soon  as  they  discovered  the  head  of 
Buzzard's  Bay;  but  it  was  not  until  1916  that  the 
canal  was  built. 

Nature  seemed  to  doom  Massachusetts  to  insignifi- 
cance; to  support  perhaps  a  line  of  poor  fishing  sta- 
tions and  hardscrabble  farms,  half-starved  between 
the  two  hungry  mouths  of  Hudson  and  St.  Lawrence. 
Man  and  a  rugged  faith  have  made  her  what  she  is. 
With  but  a  tithe  of  the  bounty  that  Nature  grants 
more  favored  lands,  the  Puritan  settlers  made  their 
land  the  most  fruitful  not  only  in  things  of  the  spirit, 
but  in  material  wealth.  Even  Nature's  apparent  liabili- 
ties were  turned  into  assets.  The  long-lying  snow  gave 
cheap  transport  inland,  the  river  rapids  turned  grist 
and  fulling  mills,  then  textile  factories ;  even  granite  and 
ice  became  currency  in  Southern  and  Oriental  trade. 

The  ocean  knows  no  favorites.  Her  bounty  is  re- 
served for  those  who  have  the  wit  to  learn  her  secrets, 
the  courage  to  bear  her  buffets,  and  the  will  to  persist, 
through  good  fortune  and  ill,  in  her  rugged  service. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  COLONIAL  BACKGROUND 
1602-1760 

THE  maritime  history  of  Massachusetts,  so  far  as 
white  men  are  concerned,  began  when  some  Basque  or 
Norman  or  "Portingale"  unknown,  blown  off  Grand 
Banks  by  an  easterly  gale,  found  shelter  under  the  lee 
of  Cape  Cod  or  Cape  Ann.  Finding  the  Indians  ready 
to  truck,  and  the  adjacent  waters  teeming  with  fish, 
he  and  his  kind  returned.  By  the  time  the  Mayflower 
sailed,  one  could  find  men  in  any  fishing  port  from 
Bristol  to  Bilbao  who  could  tell  the  bearings  of  Cape 
Ann  from  Cape  Cod,  and  compare  the  holding-ground 
in  every  harbor  from  Narragansett  to  Passamaquoddy. 
When  the  Pilgrims  were  casting  about  for  a  permanent 
settlement,  the  Mayflower's  pilot  recommended  "a 
good  harbor  on  the  other  headland  of  the  bay,  almost 
right  over  against  Cape  Cod  ...  in  which  he  had  been 
once."  They  would  have  fared  better  had  they  taken 
this  seaman's  advice. 

Bartholomew  Gosnold  visited  Cape  Cod  and  the 
Elizabeth  Islands  in  1602,  and  named  them.  De 
Champlain,  two  years  later,  made  a  good  harbor 
chart  of  Gloucester  ("le  Beau  Port"),  fought  with 
natives  at  Nauset  ("Mallebarre"),  and  looked  in  at 
the  site  of  Boston;  but  New  France  he  preferred  to 
build  along  the  mighty  outlet  of  the  Great  Lakes. 
The  Onrust  sailed  around  Cape  Cod  to  Nahant,  and 
returned  to  Manhattan. 

Captain  John  Smith,  in  1614,  was  the  first  English- 
man to  examine  the  Massachusetts  coast,  and  to  give 

8 


THE  COLONIAL  BACKGROUND 

it  that  name.  Erecting  his  fish-flakes  (wooden  frames 
for  drying  fish)  on  the  Island  of  Monhegan,  he  sent 
one  shipload  to  England,  and  another  to  Spain,  where 
it  fetched  five  Spanish  dollars  the  quintal.  The  six 
months'  voyage  cleared  fifteen  hundred  pounds.  In 
the  meantime  he  explored  the  coast,  and  told  the 
world  about  it  in  his  "Description  of  New  England," 
a  sane,  conservative  exposition  of  the  natural  advan- 
tages of  Massachusetts.  For  his  pioneer  work,  sound 
advice,  and  hearty  support  of  the  Pilgrim  colony, 
John  Smith  should  rightly  be  regarded  as  the  founder 
of  maritime  Massachusetts.  Yet  in  all  our  glut  of 
tercentenaries,  this  honest,  valiant  captain  has  been 
forgotten.  No  monument  or  tablet  commemorates  his 
services  in  the  region  of  his  choice. 

Stirred  by  Captain  Smith's  writings,  and  still  more 
by  his  success,  English  fishermen  began  to  crowd  their 
Celtic  rivals  from  New  England  waters.  Now,  Smith 
himself  had  urged  his  countrymen  to  save  time  and 
"overhead"  by  basing  the  fisheries  in  New  England, 
and  combining  them  with  fur-trading  and  shipbuild- 
ing; rather  than  sending  out  fresh  crews  and  equipment 
every  summer.  In  1623  the  "Dorchester  Adven- 
turers," a  group  of  West-County  capitalists,  endeav- 
ored to  put  his  suggestion  into  practice.  A  crew  of 
men  landed  at  the  site  of  Stage  Fort  Park  on  Glouces- 
ter Harbor,  built  huts,  flakes  and  a  fishing  stage, 
commenced  tillage,  and  drew  plans  for  a  fishing- 
trading  colony,  with  church,  school,  and  shipyards. 
The  immediate  experiment  failed  (though  not  before  a 
full  fare  had  been  sent  to  Spain) ;  but  the  promoters 
were  reorganized  as  the  "Governor  and  Company  of 
the  Massachusetts-Bay,"  with  a  title  to  all  land  be- 
tween the  Merrimac  and  the  Charles,  from  sea  to  sea. 

In  the  meantime,  the  Plymouth  Colony  had  arrived. 

9 


The  Pilgrim  fathers  sailed  with  high  hopes  and  a 
burning  faith,  but  with  few  preparations  and  no  clear 
idea  of  how  to  make  a  living  on  the  Atlantic  coast. 
Intending  to  "finde  some  place  aboute  Hudsons 
river  for  their  habitation,"  the  "deangerous  shoulds 
and  roring  breakers"  about  Monomoy  forced  the 
Mayflower  to  "bear  up  againe  for  the  Cape."  Had  the 
sands  of  Cape  Cod  afforded  a  sustenance,  they  might 
well  have  tarried  at  the  site  of  Provincetown.  But 
the  cleared  Indian  cornfields  across  the  bay,  vacant 
through  a  providential  pestilence,  tempted  them  to  the 
spot  named  Plymouth  on  Captain  Smith's  map. 

Save  for  the  overwhelming  need  of  saving  precious 
lives,  this  choice  was  unfortunate.  Plymouth  was 
deeply  embayed,  devoid  of  a  dry  landing  place  or 
anchorage  for  large  vessels ;  and  ill  provided  with  back 
country.  The  Pilgrims  learned  the  secrets  of  fur-trad- 
ing and  fishing  only  after  costly  failures.  They  were 
mercilessly  exploited  by  English  financiers.  For  two 
generations  they  owned  no  great  shipping.  Ree'n- 
forced  by  the  Puritan  emigration  of  a  later  decade, 
they  eventually  spread  out  along  Cape  Cod,  the  South 
Shore,  and  Buzzard's  Bay.  Their  faith  and  courage 
are  beyond  disparagement;  but  had  Massachusetts 
been  peopled  alone  by  the  Pilgrim  seed,  it  would  long 
have  remained  a  mere  slender  line  of  cornfields, 
trucking  posts,  and  fishing  stations. 

In  1630,  ten  years  after  its  settlement,  the  Plymouth 
Colony  contained  but  three  hundred  white  people.  At 
that  time  the  Colony  of  Massachusetts- Bay,  founded 
only  at  the  end  of  1628,  had  over  two  thousand  in- 
habitants. Within  thirteen  years  the  numbers  had 
reached  sixteen  thousand,  more  than  the  rest  of  the 
English  colonies  combined;  and  the  characteristic 
maritime  activities  of  Massachusetts  —  fishing,  ship- 

10 


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THE  COLONIAL  BACKGROUND 

ping,  and  West  India  trading  —  were  already  com- 
menced. 

It  was  not  the  intention  of  the  founders  of  Massa- 
chusetts-Bay to  establish  a  predominantly  maritime 
community.  The  first  and  foremost  object  of  Winthrop 
and  Dudley  and  Endecot  and  Saltonstall  was  to  found 
a  church  and  commonwealth  in  which  Calvinist  Pu- 
ritans might  live  and  worship  according  to  the  Word 
of  God,  as  they  conceived  it.  They  aimed  to  found  a 
New  England,  purged  of  Old  England's  corruptions, 
but  preserving  all  her  goodly  heritage.  They  intended 
the  economic  foundation  of  New  England,  as  of  Old 
England  and  Virginia,  to  be  large  landed  estates,  tilled 
by  tenants  and  hired  labor. 

In  this  they  failed.  The  New  England  town,  based 
on  freehold  and  free  labor,  sprang  up  instead  of  the 
Old  English  manor.  And  for  only  a  decade  was 
agriculture  the  mainstay  of  Massachusetts.  The 
constant  inflow  of  immigrants,  requiring  food  and 
bringing  goods,  enabled  the  first  comers  to  profit  by 
corn-growing  and  cattle-raising.  This  could  not  con- 
tinue. "For  the  present,  we  make  a  shift  to  live," 
wrote  a  pessimistic  pioneer  in  1637;  "but  hereafter, 
when  our  numbers  increase,  and  the  fertility  of  the 
soil  doth  decrease,  if  God  discover  not  means  to  enrich 
the  land,  what  shall  become  of  us  I  will  not  deter- 
mine." 

God  performed  no  miracle  on  the  New  England  soil. 
He  gave  the  sea.  Stark  necessity  made  seamen  of 
would-be  planters.  The  crisis  came  in  1641,  when  civil 
war  in  England  cut  short  the  flow  of  immigrants. 
"All  foreign  commodities  grew  scarce,"  wrote  Gover- 
nor Winthrop,  "and  our  own  of  no  price.  Corn  would 
buy  nothing;  a  cow  which  cost  last  year  £20  might  now 
be  bought  for  4  or  £5  ...  These  straits  set  our  people 

II 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

on  work  to  provide  fish,  clapboards,  plank,  etc., . . . 
and  to  look  out  to  the  West  Indies  for  a  trade  ..." 

In  these  simple  sentences,  Winthrop  explains  how 
maritime  Massachusetts  came  to  be.  The  gravelly, 
boulder-strewn  soil  was  back-breaking  to  clear,  and 
afforded  small  increase  to  unscientific  farmers.  No 
staple  of  ready  sale  in  England,  like  Virginia  tobacco 
or  Canadian  beaver,  could  be  produced  or  readily 
obtained.  Forest,  farms,  and  sea  yielded  lumber,  beef, 
and  fish.  But  England  was  supplied  with  these  from 
the  Baltic,  and  by  her  own  farmers  and  fishermen.  Un- 
less a  new  market  be  found  for  them,  Massachusetts 
must  stew  in  her  own  juice.  It  was  found  in  the  West 
Indies  —  tropical  islands  which  applied  slave  labor  to 
exotic  staples  like  sugar-cane,  but  imported  every  ne- 
cessity of  life.  More  and  more  they  became  dependent 
on  New  England  for  lumber,  provisions,  and  dried 
fish.  More  and  more  the  New  England  ships  and  mer- 
chants who  brought  these  necessities,  controlled  the 
distribution  of  West-India  products. 

Massachusetts  went  to  sea,  then,  not  of  choice,  but 
of  necessity.  Yet  the  transition  was  easy  and  natural. 
"Farm  us!"  laughed  the  waters  of  the  Bay  in  May- 
time,  to  a  weary  yeoman,  victim  of  the  'mocking 
spring's  perpetual  loss.'  "Here  thou  may'st  reap 
without  sowing  —  yet  not  without  God's  blessing; 
't  was  the  Apostles'  calling."  And  with  sharp  scorn 
spake  the  waters  to  an  axeman,  hewing  a  path  from 
river  landing  to  new  allotment:  "Hither  thy  road! 
And  of  the  oak  thou  wastest,  make  means  to  ride  it! 
Southward,  dull  clod,  and  barter  the  logs  thou  would'st 
spend  to  warm  thy  silly  body,  for  chinking  doubloons, 
as  golden  as  the  sunlight  that  bathes  the  Spanish 
main." 

Materials  and  teachers  for  a  maritime  colony  were 

12 


already  at  hand.  The  founders  had  been  careful  to 
secure  artisans,  and  tools  for  all  useful  trades,  that 
Massachusetts  might  not  have  the  one-sided  devel- 
opment of  Virginia.  Fishing  had  not  ceased  with  the 
failure  of  the  Gloucester  experiment.  Dorchester,  the 
first  community  "that  set  upon  the  trade  of  fishing 
in  the  bay,"  was  little  more  than  a  transference  to  New 
England  soil  of  Dorset  fishing  interests.  Scituate_avas 
settled  by  a  similar  company.  The  rocky  peninsula  of 
Marblehead,  with  its  ample  harbor,  attracted  fisher- 
folk  from  Cornwall  and  the  Channel  Islands,  who 
cared  neither  for  Lord  Bishop  nor  Lord  Brethren. 
Their  descendants  retained  a  distinct  dialect,  and  a 
jealous  exclusiveness  for  over  two  centuries.  Marble- 
head  obeyed  or  not  the  laws  of  the  Great  and  General 
Court,  as  suited  her  good  pleasure ;  but  as  long  as  she 
'made  fish,'  the  Puritan  magistrates  did  not  interfere. 
Literally  true  was  the  Marblehead  fisherman's  reproof 
to  an  exhorting  preacher:  "Our  ancestors  came  not 
here  for  religion.  Their  main  end  was  to  catch  fish!" 
Equally  true  was  Marblehead 's  protest  against  an 
export  tax  in  1669.  "Fish  is  the  only  great  stapple 
which  the  Country  produceth  for  forraine  parts  and 
is  so  benefitiall  for  making  returns  for  what  wee  need." 
The  firm-fleshed  codfish  of  northern  waters  is  unsur- 
passed for  salting  and  drying.  Colonial  Massachusetts 
packed  three  grades.  Dun  fish,  the  best,  was  'made' 
by  alternately  burying  and  drying  the  larger-sized  cod 
until  it  mellowed  sufficiently  for  the  taste  of  Catho- 
lic Europe.  Portugal  and  Spain,  where  Captain  John 
Smith  sold  his  first  fare,  Southern  France  and  the 
'Western'  and  'Wine*  Islands,  were  the  markets  for 
dun  fish;  and  for  barrel-  and  pipe-staves  as  well. 
In  exchange,  Cadiz  salt;  Madeira  and  Canary  wine; 
Bilbao  iron  and  pieces  of  eight;  Malaga  grapes  and 

13 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

Valencia  oranges  were  carried  to  English  and  colonial 
markets.  When  Charles  II  began  tightening  up  colo- 
nial trade,  Sir  George  Downing,  of  Harvard's  first 
graduating  class,  saw  to  it  that  this  Mediterranean 
traffic  was  allowed  to  continue.  The  middling  grade 
of  dried  codfish,  easy  to  transport,  to  keep,  and  to 
prepare,  was  a  favorite  winter  food  of  colonial  farm- 
ers. The  lowest-grade  dried  fish,  together  with  pickled 
mackerel,  bass,  and  alewives,  was  the  principal  me- 
dium in  West-India  trade.  As  John  Smith  predicted, 
"Nothing  is  here  to  be  had  which  fishing  doth  hinder, 
but  further  us  to  obtain."  Puritan  Massachusetts  de- 
rived her  ideals  from  a  sacred  book;  her  wealth  and 
power  from  the  sacred  cod. 

Shipping  was  the  other  key  industry  of  the  colony. 
Fishing  would  have  brought  little  wealth,  had  Massa- 
chusetts depended  on  outside  interests  for  vessels  — 
as  she  must  to-day  for  freight-cars.  Distribution,  not 
production,  brought  the  big  returns  in  1620  as  in  1920. 
Massachusetts  shipbuilding  began  with  the  launching 
in  1631  of  Governor  Winthrop's  Blessing  of  the  Bay, 
on  the  same  Mystic  River  that  later  gave  birth  to 
the  beautiful  Medford-built  East-Indiamen.  By  1660 
shipbuilding  had  become  a  leading  industry  in  New- 
bury,  Ipswich,  Gloucester,  Salem,  and  Boston.  The 
great  Puritan  emigration  brought  many  shipwrights 
and  master  builders,  such  as  William  Stephen,  who 
"prepared  to  go  to  Spayne,  but  was  persuaded  to  New 
England."  A  four-hundred-ton  ship  Seqfort l  was  built 

1  The  method  of  computing  tonnage  in  colonial  times  was  probably 
the  same  that  prevailed  in  the  United  States  from  the  Revolution  to 
1865.  Tonnage  meant  a  vessel's  capacity  in  tons  of  forty  cubic  feet  each, 
estimated  by  the  following  formula  (L  =  length  on  deck,  B  =  greatest 
breadth,  D  =  depth  of  hold) : 

(L-3/5B)XBXD 
95 


THE  COLONIAL  BACKGROUND 

at  Boston  in  1648,  but  wrecked  on  the  Spanish  coast, 
decoyed  by  false  lights  ashore. 

Few  Massachusetts-built  vessels  were  so  large  as 
this;  four  hundred  tons  meant  a  great  ship  as  late  as 
1815.  The  colonial  fleet  for  the  most  part  consisted 
of  small  single-decked  sloops,  the  usual  rig  for  coasters, 
and  lateen-rigged  ketches,  the  favorite  rig  for  fisher- 
men, of  twenty  to  thirty  tons  burthen,  and  thirty-five 
to  fifty  feet  long.1  Good  oak  timber  and  pine  spars  were 
so  plentiful  that  building  large  ships  on  order  or  specu- 
lation for  the  English  market  soon  became  a  recognized 
industry.  Rope- walks  were  established,  hempen  sail- 
cloth was  made  on  hand  looms,  anchors  and  coarse  iron- 
work were  forged  from  bog  ore,  and  wooden  'trunnels' 
(tree  nails)  were  used  for  fastening  planking  to  frame. 

The  English  Navigation  Act  of  1651,  restraining 
colonial  commerce  to  English  and  colonial  vessels, 
gave  an  increased  impetus  to  New  England  ship- 
building; for  the  Dutch,  with  their  base  at  New  Am- 
sterdam, had  been  serious  competitors.  In  another 
generation,  vessels  built  and  owned  in  New  England 
were  doing  the  bulk  of  the  carrying  trade  from  Chesa- 
peake Bay  to  England  and  southern  Europe.  "Many 
a  fair  ship  had  her  framing  and  finishing  here,"  wrote 
Edward  Johnson  about  1650,  "besides  lesser  vessels, 
barques  and  ketches;  many  a  Master,  beside  common 
Seamen,  had  their  first  learning  in  this  Colony." 

Half  the  breadth  was  generally  used  in  lieu  of  depth  after  the  War  of 
1812,  and  sometimes  so  used  as  early  as  1789.  William  Stephen  in  1661 
contracted  to  build  for  Salem  parties  a  two-decked  ship,  91  x  23  X  9$  at 
£3.5  per  ton.  Her  tonnage  would  be  190.  The  Mayflower's  was  180 
(according  to  Bradford),  but  she  was  probably  somewhat  shorter  and 
deeper. 

1  See  the  model  of  the  ketch  Sparrow-Hawk,  which  brought  forty 
passengers  to  Plymouth  Colony  in  1626,  in  the  Peabody  Museum, 
Salem;  and  her  very  ribs,  preserved  for  two  centuries  in  Cape  Cod  sand, 
now  in  the  basement  of  Pilgrim  Hall,  Plymouth. 

15 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

The  shipmaster's  calling  has  always  been  of  high 
repute  in  Massachusetts.  Only  the  clergy,  the  magis- 
tracy, and  the  shipowning  merchants,  most  of  whom 
were  retired  master  mariners,  enjoyed  a  higher  social 
standing  in  colonial  days.  The  ship  Trial  of  two  hun- 
dred tons,  one  of  the  first  vessels  built  at  Boston,  was 
commanded  by  Mr.  Thomas  Coytmore,  a  gentleman 
of  good  estate,  "a  right  godly  man,  and  an  expert 
seaman,"  says  Governor  Winthrop  —  who  made  his 
fourth  matrimonial  venture  with  Captain  Coytmore's 
widow.  The  foremast  hands  were  recruited  in  part 
from  English  seaports,  but  mostly  from  the  adventure- 
loving  youth  of  the  colonies.  When  Captain  John 
Turner  came  back  from  the  West  Indies  in  a  fifteen- 
ton  pinnace,  with  so  many  pieces  of  eight  that  the 
neighbors  hissed  "Piracy!";  when  the  Trial  "by  the 
help  of  a  diving  tub,"  recovered  gold  and  silver  from  a 
sunken  Spanish  galleon ;  what  ploughboy  did  not  long 
for  a  sea-change  from  grubbing  stumps  and  splitting 
staves?  When  gray  November  days  succeeded  the 
splendor  of  Indian  summer,  the  clang  of  wild  geese 
overhead  summoned  the  spirit  of  youth  to  wealth  and 
adventure 

"La-bas,  ou  les  Antilles  bleues 
Se  p<Lment  sous  1'ardeur  de  1'astre  occidental." 

A  sea  voyage,  moreover,  was  an  easy  escape  from 
the  strict  conventions  and  prying  busybodies  of  New 
England  towns.  Not  even  Cotton  Mather  could  ex- 
tend the  long  arm  of  Puritan  elder  into  cabin  and  fore- 
castle. "  It  is  a  matter  of  saddest  complaint  that  there 
should  be  no  more  Serious  Piety  in  the  Sea-faring 
Tribe,"  states  his  "Sailours  Companion  and  Counsel- 
lor." "Old  Ambrose  called  the  Sea,  The  School  of 
Vcrtue.  It  afflicts  all  the  vertuous  here,  that  the  Mari- 

16 


THE  COLONIAL  BACKGROUND 

ners  of  our  Dayes  do  no  more  to  make  it  so."  His  sub- 
sequent enumeration  of  seamen's  vices  suggests  that 
the  clipper-ship  crews  could  have  taught  little  to  these 
sons  of  pious  Puritan  households.  "No  Sundays  off 
soundings"  doubtless  held  good  in  the  seventeenth 
century  as  in  the  nineteenth. 

Edward  Randolph,  an  unfriendly  but  accurate  Eng- 
lish observer,  describes  Massachusetts  in  1676  as  a 
thriving  maritime  colony.  Thirty  of  her  merchants 
have  fortunes  of  ten  to  twenty  thousand  pounds. 
The  colony  feeds  itself,  and  produces  a  surplus  for 
export  to  Virginia  and  the  West  Indies,  as  well  as 
"all  things  necessary  for  shipping  and  naval  furniture." 
Four  hundred  and  thirty  vessels  between  thirty  and 
two  hundred  and  fifty  tons  burthen  "are  built  in  and 
belong  to  that  jurisdiction."  They  traffic  with  the 
West  Indies,  and  with  most  parts  of  Europe,  carrying 
their  own  or  other  colonies'  produce,  distributing  re- 
turn ladings  throughout  continental  colonies  and  West 
Indies,  "so  that  there  is  little  left  for  the  merchants 
residing  in  England  to  import  into  any  of  the  planta- 
tions." They  pay  no  attention  to  the  English  laws 
regulating  trade.  They  have  even  sent  ships  to 
'Scanderoon*  (Alexandretta) ;  to  Guinea,  the  slave 
mart;  and  to  Madagascar,  the  pirate  rendezvous. 
Randolph's  conclusion  is  significant.  "  It  is  the  great 
care  of  the  merchants  to  keep  their  ships  in  constant 
employ,  which  makes  them  trye  all  ports  to  force  a 
trade,  whereby  they  abound  with  all  sorts  of  commodi- 
ties, and  Boston  may  be  esteemed  the  mart  town  of  the 
West  Indies" 

Colonial  Massachusetts,  then,  was  a  chain  of  pros- 
perous trading  towns  and  fishing  villages,  separated 
from  the  wilderness  by  a  belt  of  farming  communities. 
The  key  industries  were  fishing  and  shipbuilding. 

17 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

The  secret  of  maritime  success  was  that  persistent 
enterprise  which  led  her  merchant-shipowners  to 
"trye  all  ports"  and  to  risk  all  freights. 

Even  farming  Massachusetts  clung  to  coast-line 
or  Connecticut  River,  a  feeder  of  the  Sound  ports. 
Worcester  County  was  a  wilderness  until  1730.  For 
over  a  century  after  the  Mayflower's  voyage,  few 
Massachusetts  farms  were  more  than  thirty  miles 
distant  from  tidewater,  and  all  felt  the  ebb  and  flow  of 
sea-borne  commerce.  "If  the  merchant  trade  be  not 
kept  on  foot,  they  fear  greatly  their  corne  and  cattel 
will  lye  in  their  hands,"  writes  Edward  Johnson. 
A  Yankee  farmer  prospered  only  through  foreign 
markets  for  his  industrial  by-products,  such  as  bar- 
reled beef  and  pork,  hewn  lumber  and  staves;  bowls, 
buckets,  brooms,  ox-bows,  axe-helves,  and  the  like, 
whittled  out  by  firelight  in  long  winter  evenings.  The 
influence  of  West- India  trade  and  the  fisheries  pene- 
trated the  remotest  frontier  settlements  of  New  Eng- 
land. 

* 
*        * 

The  half-century  of  peace  and  virtual  independence, 
which  permitted  this  extraordinary  development,  was 
followed  by  forty  years  of  war,  Indian  massacres, 
pestilence,  witchcraft,  and  loss  of  liberty.  In  1691  the 
Massachusetts-Bay  Colony  was  combined  with  Ply- 
mouth, the  islands  of  Martha's  Vineyard  and  Nan- 
tucket,  and  the  provinces  of  Maine  and  Sagadahoc, 
under  a  royal  charter  as  the  "Province  of  Massa- 
chusetts-Bay." Imperial  control  was  tightened,  but 
not  enough  to  prevent  another  outburst  of  prosperity 
after  the  Peace  of  Utrecht  in  1713^ 

That  date  begins  a  general  broadening-out  in  all 

18 


THE  COLONIAL  BACKGROUND 

lines  of  marine  activity.  In  codfishing  it  marks  an  era, 
both  by  the  launching  of  the  first  schooner  at  Glouces- 
ter, and  the  British  acquisition  of  Newfoundland  and 
Nova  Scotia,  with  their  convenient  shores  and  teeming 
waters.  Admission  to  the  French  West  Indies  in  1717 
extended  our  fish  market,  and  increased  our  impor- 
tations of  molasses,  until  sixty-three  Massachusetts 
distilleries  were  running  full  time.  New  England  rum 
replaced  beer  and  cider  as  the  favorite  American 
beverage,  and  supplanted  French  brandy  as  medium 
in  the  'Guinea  trade.'  Slaving  —  popular  tradition 
and  Faneuil *  Hall  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding  — 
never  became  a  leading  interest  of  Massachusetts; 
Boston  and  Salem  as  slaving  ports  were  poor  rivals  to 
Newport.  But  most  Boston  merchants  owned  slaves 
as  house  servants,  and  bought  and  sold  them  like  other 
merchandise. 

Massachusetts  also  traded  with  the  mainland  of 
South  America.  At  Surinam  fish  and  lumber  were  ex- 
changed for  the  products  of  the  Dutch  East  Indies; 
at  Honduras  logwood  and  mahogany  were  cut  for  the 
London  market.  New  England  provisions  even  found 
their  way  into  Brazil  by  way  of  Madeira. 

Shipbuilding  increased  so  rapidly  that  in  1724  sev- 
eral master  builders  of  London  petitioned  the  Lords 
of  Trade  "not  to  encourage  ship  building  in  New 
England  because  workmen  are  drawn  thither."  Dux- 
bury  shipbuilding  began  in  1719,  when  Thomas  Prince 
built  his  first  vessel  of  wild  cherry  wood ;  and  the  North 
River  became  a  serious  competitor  to  the  Merrimac. 

In  1713,  the  merchants  of  Boston  proposed  "the 
Erecting  of  a  Light  Hous  and  Lanthorn"  at  the 

1  Properly  pronounced  "Funnel,"  and  so  spelled  on  Peter's  tomb- 
stone. But  the  last  generation  of  schoolma'ms  has  taught  us  to  call  it 
"Fan-you-well." 

19 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

harbor  entrance;  and  three  years  later  Boston  Light, 
the  first  lighthouse  in  the  new  world,  was  completed. 
"A  great  Gun  to  answer  Ships  in  a  Fog"  was  shortly 
added  to  its  equipment.  Marine  insurance  began  at 
Boston  a  few  years  later.  Offshore  whaling  was  per- 
haps the  most  important  development  of  the  half- 
century  before  the  Revolution.  Cape  Cod  taught  Nan- 
tucket  how  to  harpoon  whales,  but  Nantucket  went 
her  teacher  one  better  when  in  1715  Christopher 
Hussey  fitted  out  a  vessel  to  pursue  sperm  whales,  and 
tow  them  ashore.  A  few  years  later,  by  erecting  brick 
try-works  on  shipboard,  the  Nantucket  whalers  were 
able  to  extend  their  cruising  radius  to  the  coast  of 
Brazil  and  the  Arctic  Ocean. 

Massachusetts  enjoyed  peace  for  three-quarters  of 
the  period  from  1713  to  the  Revolution.  In  war-time 
her  fishing  fleet  was  dismantled,  but  the  fishermen 
found  exciting  employment  on  armed  merchantmen 
bearing  letters  of  marque  and  reprisal.  A  typical 
Massachusetts-built  vessel  of  the  larger  class,  subject 
of  our  unique  pre- Revolutionary  ship  portrait,  was  the 
Bethel,  owned  by  the  Quincy  family.1  Armed  with 
fourteen  guns  and  carrying  thirty-eight  men,  she 
captured  in  1748  by  sheer  Yankee  bluff  a  Spanish 
treasure  ship  of  twenty-four  guns  and  one  hundred 
and  ten  men,  "worth  the  better  part  of  an  hundred 
thousand  pounds  sterling."  So  congenial,  in  fact,  did 
our  provincial  seamen  find  privateering,  that  many 
could  not  bear  to  give  it  up  when  peace  was  concluded. 
In  consequence,  not  a  few  were  hanged  in  chains  on 
Bird  Island  or  Nix's  Mate,  whereby  every  passing  sea- 
man might  gain  a  moral  lesson. 

Boston  increased  in  population  from  about  seven 
thousand  in  1690  to  about  seventeen  thousand  in  1740. 

1  The  c  in  this  name  is  pronounced  like  z. 
20 


THE  COLONIAL  BACKGROUND 

It  was  the  largest  town  in  the  English  colonies  until 
1755,  when  passed  by  Philadelphia,  and  "the  principal 
mart  of  trade  in  North  America"  for  a  much  longer 
period.  "Boston  Pier  or  the  Long  Wharf,"  built  in 
1710,  extended  King  (now  State)  Street  some  two 
thousand  feet  into  deep  water.  Wealthy  merchants 
came  from  overseas  to  share  the  results  of  Puritan 
thrift  and  energy.  Thomas  Amory,  of  London,  after 
visiting  Lisbon,  Amsterdam,  Charleston,  Philadelphia, 
and  New  York,  found  Boston  their  superior  in  com- 
mercial activity,  and  settled  there  in  1720. 

A  fresh  tide  of  immigration  was  beginning  to  flow 
into  Massachusetts  Bay,  and  a  good  part  of  it  was  non- 
English.  The  Yankee  race,  in  fact,  had  never  been  all 
English.  Were  I  asked  to  mention  two  Massachusetts 
families  who  generation  after  generation  sent  their 
sons  to  sea,  I  should  name  the  Devereux  and  the 
Delano,  both  of  French  origin.  In  Mr.  Whitmore's 
blue-book  of  Boston  provincial  society,  about  one- 
third  of  the  families  are  of  non-English  origin;  prin- 
cipally French  and  Scots,  like  the  Faneuils  and  Bow- 
doins,  Shaws  and  Cunninghams,  but  including  Ger- 
mans like  Caspar  Crowninshield  and  Dutchmen  like 
John  Wendell.  Irishmen  like  Patrick  Tracy,  of  New- 
buryport,  and  Captain  James  Magee,  of  Boston,  rose 
to  eminence  in  maritime  pursuits,  and  married  into  the 
old  Puritan  families.  Thomas  Bardin,  a  Welshman, 
founded  the  Hanover  forge  where  North  River  vessels 
obtained  their  anchors  and  ironwork.  Another  Welsh- 
man taught  Lynn  to  specialize  in  women's  shoes, 
which  before  the  Revolution  became  an  important 
medium  in  the  coasting  trade. 

Equally  false  are  two  contrasting  notions :  —  the 
one  that  New  England  was  of  'pure  Anglo-Saxon 
stock'  at  the  Revolution;  the  other  that  the  Revo- 

21 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

lution  was  an  Irish  movement.  These  are  the  pet 
lapdogs  of  modern  race  snobbery.  The  seventeenth- 
century  stock  completely  absorbed  its  eighteenth- 
century  accretions,  both  English  and  non-English.  To 
outsiders,  as  late  as  1824,  the  population  of  seaboard 
Massachusetts  seemed,  and  was,  racially  homogene- 
ous as  that  of  Brittany.  But  the  race  was  not  Anglo- 
Saxon,  or  Irish.  It  was  Yankee,  a  new  Nordic  amalgam 
on  an  English  Puritan  base;  already  in  1750  as  differ- 
ent in  its  character  and  its  dialect  from  the  English  as 
the  Australians  are  to-day.  A  tough  but  nervous,  tena- 
cious but  restless  race;  materially  ambitious,  yet  prone 
to  introspection,  and  subject  to  waves  of  religious 
emotion.  Conservative  in  its  ideas  of  property  and 
religion,  yet  (in  the  eighteenth  century)  radical  in 
business  and  government.  A  people  with  few  social 
graces,  yet  capable  of  deep  friendships  and  abiding 
loyalties;  law-abiding  yet  individualistic,  and  im- 
patient of  restraint  by  government  or  regulation  in 
business;  ever  attempting  to  repress  certain  traits  of 
human  nature,  but  finding  an  outlet  in  broad,  crude 
humor  and  deep-sea  voyages.  A  race  whose  typical 
member  is  eternally  torn  between  a  passion  for  right- 
eousness and  a  desire  to  get  on  in  the  world.  Religion 
and  climate,  soil  and  sea,  here  brewed  of  mixed  stock 
a  new  people. 

From  1740  to  the  Revolution,  Boston  declined 
slightly  in  population  —  owing  probably  to  frequent 
epidemics,  high  taxes,  and  high  cost  of  fuel  —  but  the 
smaller  seaports  came  up.  A  glance  at  the  Georgian 
mansions  of  Michael  Dalton  and  Jonathan  Jackson 
at  Newburyport;  of  John  Heard  at  Ipswich;  of  Win- 
throp  Sargent  at  Gloucester;  of  George  Cabot  at 
Beverly;  of  Richard  Derby  and  Nathaniel  Ropes  at 
Salem;  of  Jeremiah  Lee  and  'King'  Hooper  at  Mar- 

22 


THE  COLONIAL  BACKGROUND 

blehead,  and  the  latter's  country  seat  in  Danvers,  will 
convince  the  most  skeptical  that  wealth  and  good 
taste  came  out  of  the  sea,  into  these  little  towns ;  mere 
villages  they  would  be  called  to-day.  Marblehead  in 
1744  had  ninety  vessels  in  active  service,  two  hundred 
acres  covered  with  fish-flakes,  and  an  annual  catch 
worth  £34,000  sterling.  In  1765,  with  just  under  five 
thousand  inhabitants  it  was  the  sixth  town  in  the  thir- 
teen colonies;  behind  Newport,  but  ahead  of  Salem, 
Baltimore,  and  Albany. 

Why  was  maritime  Massachusetts  so  prominent  in 
the  American  Revolution?  Because  she  was  so  demo- 
cratic! answers  the  bright  scholar.  Here  is  another 
fallacy  I  would  puncture  in  passing.  American  democ- 
racy was  not  born  in  the  cabin  of  the  Mayflower  or 
in  Boston  town  meeting,  but  on  the  farming,  fighting 
frontier  of  all  the  colonies,  New  England  included. 
Seaboard  Massachusetts  has  never  known  such  a  thing 
as  a  social  democracy;  and  in  seaboard  Massachusetts, 
as  elsewhere,  inequalities  of  wealth  have  made  political 
democracy  a  sham.  Few  town  meetings  have  been 
held  near  tidewater  where  the  voice  of  shipowner, 
merchant,  or  master  mariner  did  not  carry  more 
weight  than  that  of  fisherman,  counting-room  clerk,  or 
common  seaman.  Society  in  seaboard  New  England 
was  carefully  stratified,  and  the  Revolution  brought 
little  change  save  in  personnel.  The  'quality'  dressed 
differently  from  the  poor  and  middle  classes,  lived  in 
finer  houses,  expected  and  received  deference,  and 
'ran'  their  communities  because  they  controlled  the 
working  capital  of  ships  and  goods.  The  only  differ- 
ence from  old-world  society  lay  in  the  facility  in 
passing  from  one  class  to  another. 

Marblehead  has  always  had  a  reputation  for  de- 
mocracy, especially  after  the  departure  of  'King' 

23 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

Hooper.  But  Bentley,  apropos  the  death  of  Colonel 
Glover  in  1805,  remarked,  "The  leading  men  had 
power  nowhere  else  known  in  N.  England."  Visiting 
Andover,  the  same  keen  observer  noted  the  young 
people  assembling  to  dance,  "in  classes  according  to 
their  ages,  not  with  any  regard  to  their  condition,  as 
in  the  Seaport  Towns."  Manchester,  a  poor  fishing 
village,  voted  as  the  Boston  merchant  who  handled  its 
catch  dictated.  Even  in  Cape  Cod,  there  was  a  great 
gulf  between  squire  and  fisherman.  "Was  Cape  Cod 
democratic?"  I  asked  an  aged  gentleman  from  Barn- 
stable,  who  had  gone  west  before  the  Civil  War. 
"Why,  yes;  it  was  n't  like  Boston  —  everybody  spoke 
to  everybody  else."  —  "But  was  it  democratic  like 
Wisconsin?"  —  "No!  by  no  means!" 

The  sea  is  no  wet-nurse  to  democracy.  Authority 
and  privilege  are  her  twin  foster-children.  Instant  and 
unquestioning  obedience  to  the  master  is  the  rule  of  the 
sea;  and  your  typical  sea-captain  would  make  it  the 
rule  of  the  land  if  he  could. 

Since  the  merchants  ruled  society  and  politics  in 
Massachusetts  almost  from  the  beginning  to  1825, 
when  they  were  forced  to  divide  with  the  manufac- 
turers, it  were  well  to  be  sure  we  know  what  a  mer- 
chant was.  Down  to  the  Civil  War,  the  word  was  un- 
derstood as  Dr.  Johnson  defines  it:  "one  who  trafficks 
to  remote  countries."  A  merchant  was  no  mere  shop- 
keeper, or  commission  dealer.  He  bought  and  sold, 
at  home  and  abroad,  on  his  own  account,  and  handled 
'private  adventures'  on  the  side.  He  owned  or  char- 
tered the  vessels  that  carried  his  goods.  Specializa- 
tion came  only  within  a  generation  of  1860.  The 
provincial  merchants  owned  not  only  merchant  ships, 
but  fishing  craft,  whalers  and  coasters,  sent  their  ves- 
sels to  the  other  continental  colonies,  England,  the 

24 


THE  COLONIAL  BACKGROUND 

Mediterranean,  the  West  Indies,  and  the  Spanish 
main  for  all  sorts  of  commodities;  sold  their  return 
ladings  at  wholesale,  and  at  retail  from  their  own 
shops;  speculated  in  wild  lands,  did  a  private  banking 
business,  and  underwrote  insurance  policies.  Many  of 
them  were  wealthy,  for  the  time.  Thomas  Boylston, 
the  richest  man  in  Provincial  Massachusetts,  was  sup- 
posed to  be  worth  about  $400,000  just  before  the 
Revolution;  and  Colonel  Elisha  Doane,  who  main- 
tained a  country  estate  and  a  perpetually  sandbound 
coach  at  Wellfleet  on  the  Cape,  was  a  good  second. 

These  colonial  merchants  lived  well,  with  a  spacious 
brick  mansion  in  Boston  and  a  country  seat  at  Milton 
Hill,  Cambridge,  or  as  far  afield  as  Harvard  and  Hop- 
kinton,  where  great  house  parties  were  given.  They 
were  fond  of  feasts  and  pageants,  of  driving  out  to 
country  inns  for  a  dinner  and  dance,  of  trout-fishing, 
and  pleasure  cruises  to  the  Maine  coast.  They  car- 
ried swords,  and  drew  them  if  not  granted  proper  defer- 
ence by  inferiors.  Their  wives  and  daughters  wore  the 
latest  London  fashions,  and  were  painted  by  Smibert, 
Blackburn,  and  Copley.  Their  sons  went  to  sea  on  a 
parental  ship,  or,  if  they  cared  not  for  business,  to 
Harvard  College.  Nor  was  this  'codfish  aristocracy' 
ashamed  of  the  source  of  all  these  blessings.  The 
proudest  names  in  the  province  appear  in  "Boston 
Gazette"  or  "Post-Boy"  offering  for  sale  everything 
from  fish-lines  to  broadcloth.  The  Honorable  Benja- 
min Pickman  placed  a  half-model  of  a  codfish  on  every 
front  stair-end  in  his  new  Salem  mansion. 

The  backbone  of  maritime  Massachusetts,  however, 
was  its  middle  class;  the  captains  and  mates  of  vessels, 
the  master  builders  and  shipwrights,  the  ropemakers, 
sailmakers,  and  skilled  mechanics  of  many  different 
trades,  without  whom  the  merchants  were  nothing. 

25 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

Benjamin  Franklin  was  a  typical  product  of  this  class, 
the  son  of  an  English-born  tallow-chandler,  and  a 
Folger  of  Nantucket.  As  the  broad  humor  of  that 
island  puts  it,  "  Ben's  keel  was  laid  in  Nantucket,  but 
the  old  lady  went  to  Boston  to  launch  him."  His 
first  childish  invention  was  a  cob-wharf  in  the  Boston 
millpond  marsh,  as  a  fishing  station  for  minnows;  his 
first  imprints  were  broadside  ballads  on  Blackbeard, 
and  the  shipwreck  of  Captain  Worthilake,  which  he 
hawked  about  the  crooked  streets.  In  all  his  varied 
career  the  New  England  salt  never  worked  out  of 
Franklin's  blood.  One  remembers  the  Gulf-Stream 
chart,  which  he  persuaded  a  Nantucket  cousin  to 
sketch,  in  the  vain  hope  of  dissuading  British  ship- 
masters from  bucking  that  ocean  river.  His  "Mari- 
time Suggestions"  contain  some  practical  hints  that 
were  later  followed  up  by  shipbuilders.  It  was  this 
Yankee  middle  class  of  the  water-front,  keen,  ambi- 
tious, inventive,  courageous,  that  produced  the  great 
merchants  and  shipmasters  of  later  generations;  that 
gave  maritime  Massachusetts  its  characteristic  flavor. 


CHAPTER  III 

REVOLUTION  AND  RECONSTRUCTION 
1760-1788 

A  DOGGEREL  tory  poet  made  no  bad  analysis  of  the 
Patriot  party  in  the  northern  colonies,  as  a  coalition 
of  'John  Presbyter,'  'Will  Democrack,'  and  'Nathan 
Smuggle': 

John  answer'd,  Thou  art  proud, 
Brittania,  mad  and  rich, 

Will  d d  her,  with  his  Crowd, 

And  call'd  her,  'Tyrant . ' 

While  Nathan  his  Effusions  bray'd 
And  veaw'd  She  ruin'd  all  his  Trade. 

Boston  became  the  headquarters  of  the  American 
Revolution  largely  because  the  policy  of  George  III 
threatened  her  maritime  interests.  "Massachusetts- 
Bay  is  the  most  prejudicial  plantation  to  this  king- 
dom," wrote  Sir  Josiah  Child.  Instead  of  trading  only 
with  the  mother  country,  and  producing  some  staple 
which  she  could  monopolize,  Massachusetts  would 
spite  the  Acts  of  Trade  and  Navigation,  would  "trye 
all  ports,"  would  trade  with  England's  rivals,  and 
drive  English  ships  from  colonial  commerce. 

Of  course  she  had  to  do  all  this  in  order  to  live  and 
prosper;  and  every  penny  won  from  free  trade  (as  she 
called  it)  or  smuggling  (as  the  English  called  it)  was 
spent  in  England.  Until  1760,  Englishmen  saw  the 
point  and  let  well  enough  alone;  but  the  ministers  of 
George  III  believed  it  their  duty  to  enforce  the  stat- 
utes, and  make  Massachusetts  a  colony  in  fact  as  in 
name.  Not  only  their  policy,  but  their  method  of  exe- 

27 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

cuting  it  was  objectionable.  Loyalty  was  chilled,  and 
a  fighting  spirit  aroused,  by  incidents  such  as  this: 

On  Friday  last  a  Coaster  belonging  to  Scituate  was  passing  one 
of  the  Ships  of  War  in  this  harbour,  when  they  dous'd  their  mainsail, 
but  it  not  being  quite  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  commanding  officer 
of  the  Ship,  they  sent  their  boat  on  board  and  upon  the  Officer's 
stepping  upon  the  Sloop's  deck  he  immediately  drew  a  cutlass  with 
which  he  struck  the  master  of  the  Coaster  on  the  cheek,  which  cut  a 
gash  near  three  inches  long,  after  which  he  damn'd  him  for  not 
showing  more  respect  to  the  King's  Ship  and  then  cut  the  halliards 
of  the  mainsail  and  let  the  sail  run  down  upon  deck.1 

The  American  Revolution  in  eastern  Massachu- 
setts was  financed  and  in  part  led  by  wealthy  mer- 
chants like  John  Hancock,  Josiah  Quincy,  James 
Bowdoin,  Richard  Derby,  and  Elbridge  Gerry.2  When 
the  crisis  came  in  1775,  a  minority  of  the  merchants, 
alarmed  at  mob  violence,  preferred  law  and  order  to 
liberty  and  property;  but  the  majority  risked  the  one 
to  secure  the  other  —  and  obtained  both.  They  may, 
too,  have  been  moved  by  the  same  high  ideals  which, 
spread  broadcast  by  the  voice  and  pen  of  Adams  and 
Otis,  Hawley  and  Warren,  set  interior  Massachusetts 
ablaze.  But  their  interests  as  well  were  at  stake.  If 
American  trade  were  regulated  by  corrupt  incom- 
petents three  thousand  miles  away,  Massachusetts 
might  as  well  retire  from  the  sea. 

In  consequence,  the  Revolution  in  eastern  Massa- 
chusetts, radical  in  appearance,  was  conservative  in 
character.  The  war  closed  with  little  change  in  the 
social  system  of  provincial  days,  although  the  change 
in  personnel  was  great.  Maritime  interests  were  still 
supreme.  The  Constitution  of  1780  was  a  lawyers' 
and  merchants'  constitution,  directed  toward  some- 

1  Boston  Gazette  and  Country  Journal,  Sept.  25,  1769. 
*  The  G  in  this  name  is  hard. 

28 


REVOLUTION  AND  RECONSTRUCTION 

thing  like  quarterdeck  efficiency  in  government,  and 
the  protection  of  property  against  democratic  pirates. 

The  maritime  history  of  Massachusetts  during  the 
War  of  Independence  would  make  a  book  in  itself; 
it  has  already  lent  color  to  many  books.  We  must  pass 
by  the  marine  Lexington  in  Machias  Bay,  the  state 
navy  fitted  out  in  1775,  the  British  attacks  on  Glouces- 
ter, Portland,  and  New  Bedford.  Just  a  word,  how- 
ever, on  privateering.  Her  success  in  this  legalized 
piracy  was  probably  the  greatest  contribution  of  sea- 
board Massachusetts  to  the  common  cause.  Six  hun- 
dred and  twenty-six  letters  of  marque  were  issued  to 
Massachusetts  vessels  by  the  Continental  Congress, 
and  some  thousand  more  by  the  General  Court.  Priva- 
teers were  of  little  use  in  naval  operations,  as  the  dis- 
astrous Penobscot  expedition  proved;  but  they  were 
of  very  greatest  service  in  preying  on  the  enemy's 
commerce,  intercepting  his  communications  with 
America,  carrying  terror  and  destruction  into  the  very 
chops  of  the  Channel,  and  supplying  the  patriot  army 
with  munitions,  stores  and  clothing  at  Johnny  Bull's 
expense. 

From  an  economic  and  social  viewpoint,  privateer- 
ing employed  the  fishermen,  and  all  those  who  de- 
pended on  shipping;  taught  daring  seamanship,  and 
strengthened  our  maritime  aptitude  and  tradition. 
Privateers  required  speed;  and  the  Massachusetts 
builders,  observing,  it  is  said,  the  scientifically  de- 
signed vessels  of  our  French  allies,  did  away  with  high 
quarterdecks,  eased  water-lines,  and  substituted  a 
nearly  U-shaped  cross-section  for  the  barrel-shaped 
bottom  and  unseemly  tumble-home  of  the  old-style 
ships.  Commerce  continued  with  the  West  Indies, 
France,  and  Spain  in  letter-of-marque  ships,  armed 
merchantmen  with  a  license  to  take  prizes  on  the  side. 

29 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

The  letter-of-marque  ship  General  Pickering  of  Salem, 
Captain  Jonathan  Haraden,  fourteen  guns  and  forty- 
five  men,  but  heavily  laden  with  sugar,  beat  the  Brit- 
ish privateer  Achilles  of  three  times  her  size  and  arma- 
ment off  Bilbao,  in  one  of  the  most  gallant  sea-fights 
of  the  Revolution.  On  the  back  side  of  Cape  Cod, 
whalemen  with  swivel-armed  boats  kept  watch  on 
Nantucket  and  Vineyard  Sounds,  the  sea-lane  to  the 
British  base  in  New  York.  With  an  impudent  daring 
that  astounded  the  enemy,  they  swooped  down  on  his 
vessels  when  becalmed,  or  cut  them  out  of  Tarpaulin 
Cove  and  Holmes  Hole  at  night-time.  On  Salem,  in 
particular,  the  Revolution  wrought  an  entire  change  in 
commercial  spirit.  Before  the  war  Salem  was  mainly 
a  fishing  port.  Privateering  gave  her  seamen  a  broader 
horizon,  and  her  merchants  a  splendid  ambition. 

In  the  earlier  years  of  the  war,  large  profits  were 
made  from  privateering  by  every  one  connected  with 
it.  A  favorite  speculation  for  merchants  was  to  buy, 
in  advance  of  his  cruise,  half  a  privateersman's  share 
of  his  forthcoming  prizes.  But  in  the  last  year  or  two 
of  the  war  the  British  tightened  their  blockade,  cap- 
tured a  large  part  of  our  fleet,  and  drove  the  rest  into 
port.  The  insurance  rate  from  Beverly  to  Hayti  and 
back  was  forty  per  cent  in  1780.  The  Derbys  of  Salem 
are  said  to  have  been  the  only  privateering  firm  to  re- 
tain a  favorable  balance,  when  peace  was  concluded. 

But  it  was  a  great  war  while  it  lasted ! 

Then  came  the  worst  economic  depression  Massa- 
chusetts has  ever  known.  The  double  readjustment 
from  a  war  to  a  peace  basis,  and  from  a  colonial  to  an 
independent  basis,  caused  hardship  throughout  the 
colonies.  It  worked  havoc  with  the  delicate  adjust- 
ment of  fishing,  seafaring,  and  shipbuilding  by  which 
Massachusetts  was  accustomed  to  gain  her  living.  By 

30 


REVOLUTION  AND  RECONSTRUCTION 

1786,  the  exports  of  Virginia  had  more  than  regained 
their  pre-Revolutionary  figures.  At  the  same  date  the 
exports  of  Massachusetts  were  only  one-fourth  of  what 
they  had  been  twelve  years  earlier. 

The  fisheries  had  to  be  reconstructed  from  the  be- 
ginning. Owing  to  the  diplomacy  of  John  Adams, 
Massachusetts  codfishermen  retained  access  to  their 
old  grounds;  but  they  lacked  vessels,  gear,  and  capital. 
It  is  generally  assumed  that  our  fishing  fleet  had  been 
transformed  into  privateers,  and  needed  only  recon- 
version to  go  out  and  catch  cod.  But  the  fishing 
schooner  of  that  period  was  a  slow,  unwieldy  craft,  of 
little  use  in  privateering.  Such  of  them  as  had  been 
converted,  for  the  most  part  were  captured;  the  rest, 
high  and  dry  for  seven  years,  needed  expensive  repairs. 
The  whaling  fleet  of  Nan  tucket  and  Dartmouth l  had 
been  wiped  out.  Only  four  or  five  remained  out  of  two 
hundred  sail;  the  rest  had  been  lost,  burned,  or  cap- 
tured. 

Independence  deprived  the  Massachusetts  cod- 
fisheries  of  their  greatest  market,  the  British  West 
Indies;  and  the  whale-fisheries  of  their  only  foreign 
market,  England.  Johnny  Bull  naturally  slammed 
his  colonial  doors  in  Jonathan's  face;  would  receive  his 
ships  on  no  terms,  nor  even  his  salt  provisions  and  cod- 
fish in  British  vessels.  He  intended  to  build  up  his  own 
fisheries  and  lumber  trade.  France  and  Spain  excluded 
recent  allies  from  their  colonial  preserves.  The  Dutch, 
Danish,  and  Swedish  islands  remained ;  not  important 
markets,  but  good  centers  for  smuggling.  But  until 
the  new  ropes  were  learned,  the  returns  to  New  Eng- 
land fishermen  were  meager  indeed.  After  four  years 
of  peace,  about  four-fifths  of  the  Grand  Banks  fleet 

1  Dartmouth   until   1787  included   New  Bedford,  Fairhaven,  and 
Westport. 

31 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

was  in  commission;  but  the  men  were  not  earning 
enough  to  see  their  families  through  the  winter.  By 
1789,  only  one-third  of  the  whaling  tonnage  of  1773 
had  been  restored.1 

The  coasting  trade  was  under  a  similar  handicap,  for 
Massachusetts  had  been  accustomed  to  pay  for  her  im- 
ports of  tobacco  and  Southern  produce  largely  with 
West  India  goods.  Almost  the  only  thing  that  could 
be  done  was  to  send  small  sloops  and  fishing  vessels 
to  peddle  out  local  produce  along  the  shores  of  Ches- 
apeake Bay,  Albemarle  Sound,  Pamlico  Sound,  and 
Cape  Fear  River,  for  corn,  tobacco,  and  naval  stores. 
For  example,  three  fishing  schooners  cleared  from 
Beverly  for  Maryland  and  North  Carolina  during  the 
first  two  weeks  of  December,  1787.  The  Swallow,  forty- 
five  tons,  takes  bricks,  butter,  fish,  rum,  potatoes,  and 
"6  Tons  of  English  Hay  here  produced."  The  Wood- 
bridge,  Seward  Lee  master,  takes  "5  hhd.  salt,  12  q. 
dry  fish,  5  hhd.  molasses,  4  bbl.  Mackerell,  6  doz. 
buckets,  9  Setts  wooden  measures,  3  half-pecks,  n 
buckets  with  covers,  6  hhd.  &  6  bbl.  N.E.  Rum,  8 
boxes  chocolate,  3  doz.  common  cheeses,  2  cases 
Earthen  ware,  I  doz.  axes,  36  bbl.  potatoes,  I  doz. 
setts  Sugar  Boxes" ;  and  "all  the  above  are  the  Growth 
and  Manufacture  of  this  state."  With  such  typical 
cargoes  of  "Yankee  notions,"  pathetic  in  their  homely 
variety,  the  smaller  seaports  of  Massachusetts  were 
wooing  the  prosperity  which  had  already  returned  to 
the  South. 

And  what  of  the  slave  trade?  A  dark  subject,  indeed ; 
one  which  I  have  endeavored  in  vain  to  illuminate. 
The  "Guinea  trade"  had  never  been  an  important 
line  of  commerce  in  Massachusetts.  It  was  forbidden, 
under  heavy  penalties,  by  an  act  of  the  General  Court 

1  See  table  in  Appendix. 
32 


JTT??*  fi\^\    < 

^fy^\j>^&:;3^. 


BOSTON  HARBOUR 

/eu<). 


accortforui  to  tA*  latent  *. 


REVOLUTION  AND  RECONSTRUCTION 

in  1788.  Yet  it  did  not  entirely  cease.  Felt,  in  his 
"Annals  of  Salem,"  prints  the  instructions  of  an  owner 
to  a  slaver  which  left  that  port  in  1785.  Dr.  Bentley, 
who  had  a  keen  scent  for  this  nefarious  traffic,  notes  in 
his  diary  the  names  of  at  least  eight  Salem  shipmasters 
who  engaged  in  it,  at  one  time  or  another,  between 
1788  and  1802.  A  mutiny  in  the  middle  passage  dis- 
posed of  one ;  another  was  killed  by  a  negro  in  revenge ; 
one,  "of  a  most  worthy  family,"  died  at  Havana,  an- 
other cut  his  own  throat.  Only  one  seems  to  have  been 
arrested,  and  he  was  released  for  lack  of  evidence;  al- 
though an  extant  log  of  one  of  his  voyages,  from  Salem 
to  the  Guinea  coast  and  the  West  Indies,  bears  witness 
to  his  guilt.  Salem  had  a  regular  trade  with  the  West 
African  coast,  rum  and  fish  for  gold  dust,  palm  oil,  and 
ivory;  and  it  would  be  surprising  if  an  occasional  ship- 
master did  not  yield  to  the  temptation  to  load  '  black 
ivory'  as  well. 

The  statistics  of  slave  imports  at  Charleston,  be- 
tween 1804  and  1808,  disclosed  by  Senator  Smith,  of 
South  Carolina,  in  the  latter  year,  state  that  seventy 
of  the  entering  vessels  belonged  to  Great  Britain,  sixty- 
one  to  Charleston  itself,  fifty-nine  to  Rhode  Island, 
only  one  to  Boston,  and  none  to  any  other  Massachu- 
setts port.  But  this  does  not  include  the  West- Indian 
slave  trade;  and  an  interesting  insurance  policy,  dated 
June  13,  1803,  suggests  how  it  could  be  carried  on  with- 
out breaking  either  the  laws  of  Massachusetts  or  of 
the  United  States.  One  of  the  most  eminent  and  fa- 
mous firms  of  China  merchants,  acting  as  agents  for 
one  Robert  Cuming,  of  St.  Croix  (Danish  West  Indies), 
insures  for  $33,000  at  ten  per  cent,  his  ship  Hope  and 
cargo  from  the  coast  of  Africa  to  Havana,  under  Danish 
colors.  "  The  assurers  are  liable  for  loss  by  insurrection, 
but  not  by  natural  mortality.  Each  slave  is  valued  at 

33 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

two  hundred  dollars."  This  policy  is  underwritten  by 
seven  of  the  most  respectable  Boston  merchants,  and 
negotiated  by  an  eighth. 

William  Lloyd  Garrison  exposed  a  domestic  slave- 
trader  of  Newburyport  in  1829,  one  who  took  slaves  as 
freight  from  Baltimore  to  New  Orleans.  Even  later  the 
New  Bedford  whaling  masters  occasionally  engaged 
in  the  African  trade.  Only  a  thorough  examination  of 
our  court  records,  and  of  the  archives  of  such  foreign 
seaports  as  Havana,  would  reveal  a  measure  of  the  full 
truth.  Yet  I  believe  the  statement  warranted  that  the 
slave  trade,  as  prosecuted  from  Massachusetts  or  by 
Massachusetts  capital  after  the  Revolution,  was  occa- 
sional and  furtive,  rather  than  a  recognized  under- 
ground traffic.  Certainly  it  played  no  prominent  part 
in  the  commercial  prosperity  of  the  community;  and 
the  assertion,  often  disproved  but  as  often  repeated, 
that  Massachusetts  was  "the  nursing  mother  of  the 
horrors  of  the  middle  passage,"  is  without  any  founda- 
tion in  fact. 

Shipbuilding  came  to  a  standstill  shortly  after  the 
Revolution.  With  no  British  market  for  our  bottoms, 
and  British  colonial  ports  closed  to  the  American 
flag;  with  French,  Austrians,  Germans,  Dutch,  and 
Swedes  competing  for  our  carrying  trade,  and  no  gov- 
ernment capable  of  granting  protection;  the  shipping 
supremacy  of  Massachusetts  seemed  forever  ended. 
According  to  an  official  report  of  the  French  consul  at 
Boston,  about  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  vessels 
had  been  launched  annually  in  Massachusetts  be- 
fore the  war.  In  1784,  only  forty-five  vessels  left  the 
ways;  and  twelve  of  them,  built  for  the  French  East- 
India  service,  were  so  poorly  constructed  that  no  more 
outside  orders  came.  Between  1785  and  1787,  only 
fifteen  to  twenty  were  built  annually.  A  goodly  fleet  of 

34 


REVOLUTION  AND  RECONSTRUCTION 

merchantmen,  and  several  new  privateers  like  the 
Astrea  and  Grand  Turk,  constructed  during  the  last 
year  or  two  of  the  war,  were  on  hand;  but  there  was 
little  employment  for  them.  Instead  of  sending  her 
fleet  to  all  Europe,  as  optimists  predicted,  Massachu- 
setts found  her  own  harbors  thronged  with  foreign 
flags,  and  her  wharves  heaped  high  with  foreign  goods. 

Between  May  and  December,  1783,  twenty-eight 
French  vessels,  and  almost  the  same  number  of  English 
merchantmen,  brought  cargoes,  worth  almost  half  a 
million  dollars,  into  Boston  Harbor  alone.  Consisting 
largely  of  luxuries,  they  were  nevertheless  snapped  up 
(on  credit,  of  course)  by  the  merchants  of  this  war- 
stricken  town  of  ten  thousand  inhabitants.  Peace 
brought  a  riot  of  luxury  such  as  Massachusetts  never 
saw  again  until  1919.  The  war  debt  was  enormous,  the 
need  of  production  imperative;  but  privateering,  spec- 
ulation, and  the  continental  currency  had  so  under- 
mined Yankee  thrift  and  energy  that  many  persons 
thought  the  character  of  the  race  had  completely 
changed.  Travelers  commented  on  the  vulgar  display 
of  the  profiteers,  and  the  reckless  spending  of  farmers 
and  mechanics.  We  hear  of  artisans  buying  silk 
stockings,  and  'jeunes  paysannes'  coming  into  Bos- 
ton market,  wearing  'chapeaux  Montgolfiers.' 

Worst  of  all,  civil  conflict  was  impending.  For  some 
years  before  the  Revolution,  central  and  western 
Massachusetts  had  been  increasing  rapidly  in  popula- 
tion, and  acquiring  class  consciousness.  The  farmer  no 
longer  blessed  the  merchant,  but  cursed  him  as  an 
exploiter.  All  classes  and  sections  had  allied  to  resist 
British  imperialism;  but  the  war  brought  about  much 
friction.  Mutual  accusations  of  profiteering  and  slack- 
ing were  frequent.  Berkshire  County  refused  obe- 
dience to  the  Boston  government  until  1780;  and  few 

35 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

debts  or  taxes  were  paid  in  western  Massachusetts  for 
seven  years. 

By  1783  the  farmers  had  acquired  a  higher  standard 
of  living,  and  a  heavy  burden  of  debts.  European 
creditors  began  to  press  Boston  merchants ;  who  turned 
to  their  country  storekeeper  debtors,  who  began  to 
distrain  on  the  farmers,  who  then  called  upon  govern- 
ment to  establish  a  moratorium  for  debts,  and  to  issue 
cheap  money.  But  maritime  Massachusetts  controlled 
the  government,  by  the  simple  device  of  apportioning 
the  state  senate  according  to  taxable  wealth.  Every 
effort  of  the  representatives  to  relieve  the  farmers 
died  in  the  upper  house. 

The  merchants  even  shifted  the  burden  of  taxation 
to  those  who  could  least  bear  it.  Forty  per  cent  of  the 
state  expenses  were  raised  by  poll-taxes,  which  fell 
equally  on  rich  and  poor,  merchant  prince  and  plough- 
boy.  The  customs  duties  were  low,  and  largely  evaded ; 
Samuel  Breck  tells  in  his  "Recollections"  how  the  best 
people  would  smuggle  in  a  good  proportion  of  each 
cargo,  as  if  the  customs  were  still  the  King's. 

Owing  to  the  dislocation  of  the  West- India  trade 
and  the  departure  of  the  French  and  British  armies, 
there  was  no  longer  a  market  for  the  farming  and 
domestic  produce  of  central  New  England.  Prices 
and  common  labor  fell  to  almost  nothing.  At  this 
crisis,  the  state  government  began  to  distrain  on  tax 
delinquents,  and  the  merchants  on  their  debtors.  The 
courts  became  clogged  with  suits.  Farms  which  had 
been  in  one  family  for  generations,  were  sold  under  the 
hammer  at  a  fraction  of  their  real  value,  to  pay  debts 
contracted  at  inflated  prices,  or  a  few  years'  overdue 
taxes.  The  situation  became  intolerable  to  men  who 
had  fought  for  liberty. 

In  the  summer  of  1786  the  storm  broke.  The  up- 

36 


REVOLUTION  AND  RECONSTRUCTION 

country  yeomanry,  under  the  leadership  of  Revolu- 
tionary officers  like  Daniel  $hays,  began  breaking  up 
sessions  of  the  courts,  in  the  hope  of  a  respite  from 
confiscations  until  the  next  state  election.  Govern- 
ment ordered  them  to  disperse,  and  preached  "fru- 
gality, industry  and  self-denial."  The  yeomanry 
persisted,  and  the  tide  of  lawlessness  rolled  nearer 
Boston.  Governor  Bowdoin  proclaimed  the  rebel 
leaders  outlaws.  They  then  resolved  to  be  outlaws  in- 
deed, and  attacked  the  Springfield  arsenal  in  search  of 
better  weapons  than  pitchforks  and  Queen's  arms. 
One  '  whiff  of  grapeshot '  dispersed  the  ragged  battal- 
ions to  the  bleak  hills  of  western  Massachusetts.  Loyal 
militia  and  gentlemen  volunteers  from  the  seaboard, 
advancing  through  the  deep  snow  of  a  hard  winter, 
broke  up  the  remaining  bands,  early  in  1787.  It  was 
a  victory  of  property  over  democracy;  of  maritime 
Massachusetts  over  farming  Massachusetts. 

Notwithstanding  these  civil  disorders,  some  brave 
efforts  were  made  both  by  the  Commonwealth  and  by 
private  individuals,  in  the  years  near  1786,  to  make 
the  state  more  self-sufficient.  The  Massachusetts 
Bank,  first  in  the  state,  was  chartered  in  1784.  A 
small  manufacturing  boom  set  in  about  the  same 
time.  The  "Boston  Glass  House"  was  established  by 
a  group  of  local  capitalists  in  1786,  and  received  a  state 
monopoly  for  manufacturing  window-glass.  The  Cabot 
family  established  the  Beverly  Cotton  Manufactory 
in  1787.  Most  of  these  experiments  closed  their  doors 
in  a  few  years'  time.  But  the  Charles  River  Bridge 
from  Boston  to  Charlestown,  opened  on  the  eleventh 
anniversary  of  the  battle  of  Bunker  Hill,  was  a  financial 
success,  and  encouraged  the  building  of  several  other 
toll-bridges  that  greatly  increased  the  facilities  of  the 
seaport  towns. 

37 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

In  the  meantime,  commerce  was  slowly  reviving. 
Yankee  skippers  l  were  learning  to  outwit  both  Bar- 
bary  corsairs  and  West  India  regulations.  Orders  in 
Council  changed  neither  the  Jamaican  appetite  for 
dried  codfish,  nor  the  Yankee  thirst  for  Jamaica  rum. 
A  Massachusetts  vessel  putting  into  a  British  port 
"in  distress"  was  likely  to  obtain  an  official  permit  to 
land  its  cargo  and  relieve  the  "starving  population." 
France,  thanks  to  Jefferson's  diplomacy,  gradually  re- 
opened her  insular  possessions ;  and  Spain  permitted  di- 
rect trade  with  Havana,  Trinidad,  and  New  Orleans. 
St.  Eustatius,  St.  Bartholomew,  and  the  Virgin  Islands 
became  entrepots  for  illicit  traffic.  Much  New  England 
lumber  and  whale  oil  found  its  way  to  the  West  India 
and  English  markets  by  acquiring  a  "  British  "  character 
in  Nova  Scotia.  Despite  the  English  disposition  to 
"cramp  us  in  the  Cod-Fishery,"  as  Stephen  Higgin- 
son  put  it,  and  the  bounties  paid  by  France  to  her 
pecheurs  d  'Islande,  the  West  Indies  took  a  greater  pro- 
portion of  our  dried  codfish  in  1790  than  in  1775.  But 
the  total  exports  were  still  far  below  those  of  the  pre- 
Revolutionary  era. 

By  1787  the  West-India  trade  was  in  a  measure  re- 
stored. Beverly,  for  instance,  imported  about  3100 
gallons  of  foreign  rum,  7000  gallons  of  "other  foreign 
distilled  spirits,"  400  pounds  of  cocoa,  3500  pounds  of 
sugar,  and  50,000  pounds  of  leaf  tobacco,  between 
April  I  and  July  I,  1787.  The  benefits  of  a  reopened 
market  for  farm  produce  and  wooden  ware,  percolating 
into  the  interior,  did  more  to  salve  the  wounds  of 
Shays's  Rebellion  than  all  the  measures  passed  by  the 
Great  and  General  Court. 

1  This  term  is  correctly  used  only  for  the  masters  of  fishing  vessels, 
coasters,  and  small  craft  such  as  traded  with  the  West  Indies.  A  docu- 
ment of  1775  in  the  Beverly  Historical  Society  speaks  of  "the  chuner 
Mary  thomas  Rusel  Skiper  &  oner." 

38 


REVOLUTION  AND  RECONSTRUCTION 

But  the  general  commercial  situation  in  Massachu- 
setts was  still  most  unsatisfactory.  Every  state,  under 
the  Confederation,  had  its  own  customs  duties  and 
tonnage  laws.  When  Massachusetts  attempted  to  dis- 
criminate against  British  vessels,  her  neighbors  re- 
ceived them  with  open  arms;  and  British  goods  reached 
Boston  from  other  ports  by  coasting  sloops.  Not  even 
the  coasting  trade  was  confined  to  the  American  flag ; 
and  the  port  dues  were  constantly  changed.  More 
commercial  treaties  were  needed  with  foreign  powers. 
Federal  bounties  were  needed  to  revive  fishing.  Shays's 
Rebellion,  fortunately,  sent  such  a  thrill  of  horror 
through  the  states,  that  conservative  forces  drew  to- 
gether to  create  a  more  perfect  union. 

In  the  struggle  of  1788  over  the  ratification  of  the 
Federal  Constitution,  Massachusetts  was  a  pivotal 
state.  The  voters  returned  an  anti-Federalist  majority 
to  her  ratifying  convention.  By  various  methods, 
enough  votes  were  changed  to  obtain  ratification.  A 
meeting  of  four  hundred  Boston  mechanics  (following, 
it  is  said,  a  promise  by  local  merchants  to  order  three 
new  vessels  upon  ratification)  drew  up  strong  Federalist 
resolutions,  which  turned  the  wavering  Samuel  Adams. 
Governor  Hancock  was  reached  by  methods  less 
direct.  Boston  hospitality  had  its  influence.  "I  most 
Tel  you  I  was  never  Treated  with  So  must  politeness 
in  my  life  as  I  was  afterwards  by  the  Treadesmen  of 
Boston  merchants  &  every  other  Gentlemen,"  wrote  a 
backwoods  member.  Finally  the  Convention  ratified, 
by  a  majority  of  19  out  of  355  votes.  The  sectional 
alignment  was  significant.  The  coast  and  island  coun- 
ties of  Massachusetts  proper  cast  102  votes  in  favor, 
and  only  19  against,  ratification.  The  inland  counties * 

1  Including  Middlesex  and  Bristol,  the  bulk  of  whose  population  was 
agricultural  at  this  period. 

39 


MAKITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

cast  60  in  favor,  128  against.  For  the  third  time  in 
ten  years,  maritime  Massachusetts  won  over  farming 
Massachusetts. 

On  her  proper  element,  maritime  Massachusetts 
was  already  winning  a  cleaner  fight:  —  victory  over 
lethargy  and  despair;  victory  over  powers  who  would 
cramp  her  restless  energy,  doom  her  ships  to  decay, 
and  her  seamen  to  emigrate.  Some  subtle  instinct,  or 
maybe  thwarted  desire  of  Elizabethan  ancestors  who, 
seeking  in  vain  the  Northwest  Passage,  founded  an 
empire  on  the  barrier,  was  pulling  the  ships  of  Massa- 
chusetts east  by  west,  into  seas  where  no  Yankee  had 
ever  ventured.  Off  the  roaring  breakers  of  Cape  Horn, 
in  the  vast  spaces  of  the  Pacific,  on  savage  coasts 
and  islands,  and  in  the  teeming  marts  of  the  Far  East, 
the  intrepid  shipmasters  and  adventurous  youth  of 
New  England  were  reclaiming  their  salt  sea  heritage. 


PIONEERS  OF  THE  PACIFIC 
1784-1792 

MARITIME  commerce  was  the  breath  of  life  for  Massa- 
chusetts. When  commerce  languished,  the  common- 
wealth fell  sick.  When  commerce  revived  even  a  little, 
the  hot  passions  of  Shays's  Rebellion  cooled  just 
enough  to  permit  a  ratification  of  the  Federal  Con- 
stitution. Prosperity,  not  only  of  the  seaport  towns, 
but  of  the  agricultural  interior,  depended  as  of  old 
upon  the  success  of  seafaring  Massachusetts.  Without 
prosperity,  emigration  would  follow,  and  slow  decay, 
and  death.  The  codfishermen  must  exact  tribute  from 
the  Banks;  the  whalers  must  pursue  their  'gigantic 
game'  around  the  Horn,  the  merchants  and  trading 
vessels  must  recover  their  grip  on  the  home  market  and 
the  handling  of  Southern  exports;  must  find  substitutes 
for  the  protected  trade  of  colonial  days;  must  elude 
the  Spanish  guarda  costas  along  the  circumference  of 
South  America;  must  compete  with  English,  Scots,  and 
Dutchmen  in  the  Baltic  and  the  Indies;  and  must 
seek  out  new,  virgin  markets  and  sources  of  supply  in 
the  Pacific.  All  this  had  to  be  done,  that  Massachu- 
setts retain  her  position  among  the  brighter  stars  of  the 
American  constellation.  The  doing  of  it  determined  her 
political  orientation ;  transformed  a  revolutionary  com- 
munity, the  most  fecund  source  of  political  thought  in 
the  western  world,  into  a  conservative  commonwealth, 
the  spearhead  of  the  aggressively  reactionary  Federal- 
ist party. 

"  From  1790  to  1820,  there  was  not  a  book,  a  speech, 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

a  conversation,  or  a  thought  in  the  State,"  wrote 
Emerson.  Speaking  relatively  and  broadly,  he  was 
right.  The  Yankee  mind,  engrossed  in  the  struggle  for 
existence,  neglected  things  spiritual  and  intellectual 
during  this  Federalist  period  of  its  history;  and  the 
French  Revolution  made  thought  suspicious  to  a  com- 
mercial community.  Yet  thought  there  was,  even 
though  the  Sage  of  Concord  might  not  call  it  by  that 
name ;  the  thought  that  opens  up  new  channels  of  trade, 
sets  new  enterprises  on  foot,  and  erects  a  political 
system  to  consolidate  them.  By  such  thought,  no  less 
than  the  other,  the  grist  of  history  is  ground. 

Every  seaport  of  Massachusetts  proper  from  New- 
buryport  to  Edgartown  was  quickening  into  new 
activity  in  1789;  none  more  so  than  the  capital.  The 
Boston  of  massacre  and  tea-party,  of  Sam  Adams  and 
Jim  Otis,  of  uproarious  mobs  and  radical  meetings, 
was  in  transition  to  that  quiet,  prosperous,  orderly 
Federalist  Boston,  the  Boston  of  East-India  merchants 
and  Federalist  statesmen;  of  Thomas  Handasyd  Per- 
kins, Charles  Bulfinch,  and  Harrison  Gray  Otis. 

In  appearance,  the  Boston  of  1790  was  unchanged 
since  1750.  Charles  Bulfinch  had  returned  from  Eu- 
rope, but  his  native  town  had  barely  taken  up  the  slack 
of  the  turbulent  era ;  some  accumulation  of  wealth  was 
needed  to  employ  his  architectural  talents.  The  eight- 
een thousand  inhabitants  were  not  crowded  on  their 
peninsula  of  seven  hundred  and  eighty  acres  —  about 
nine-tenths  the  area  of  Central  Park,  New  York.  As 
one  approached  it  by  the  Charles  River  Bridge  in  1790, 
Boston  seemed  "almost  to  stand  in  the  water,  at  least 
to  be  surrounded  by  it,  and  the  shipping,  with  the 
houses,  trees,  and  churches,  have  a  charming  effect." 
Beacon  Hill,  a  three-peaked  grassy  slope,  still  innocent 
of  the  gilded  dome,  dominated  the  town.  From  its 

42 


SAMUEL  SHAW 


PIONEERS  OF  THE  PACIFIC 

base  a  maze  of  narrow  streets  paved  with  beach  stones, 
wound  their  way  seaward  among  ancient  dwellings; 
dividing  around  Copp's  and  Fort  Hills  to  meet  again 
by  the  water's  edge.  One  of  them,  to  be  sure,  led  to 
"landward  to  the  west,"  but  at  spring  tides  even  that, 
too,  went  "downward  to  the  sea."  Buildings  crowded 
out  to  the  very  capsills  of  the  wharves,  which  poked 
boldly  into  deep  water.  The  uniform  mass  of  slate  and 
mossy  shingle  roofs,  pointed,  hipped,  and  gambreled, 
was  broken  by  a  few  graceful  church  spires,  serene 
elders  of  the  masts  that  huddled  about  the  wharves. 
As  for  the  people,  "Commerce  occupies  all  their 
thought,"  writes  Brissot  de  Warville  in  1788,  "turns 
all  their  heads,  and  absorbs  all  their  speculations. 
Thus  you  find  few  estimable  works,  and  few  authors." 
But  "let  us  not  blame  the  Bostonians;  they  think  of 
the  useful  before  procuring  themselves  the  agreeable. 
They  have  no  brilliant  monuments;  but  they  have 
neat  and  commodious  houses,  superb  bridges,  and  ex- 
cellent ships."  To  Timothy  Dwight,  of  New  Haven, 
the  Bostonians  seemed  "distinguished  by  a  lively 
imagination.  .  .  .  Their  enterprises  are  sudden,  bold, 
and  sometimes  rash.  A  general  spirit  of  adventure 
prevails  here." 

One  bright  summer  afternoon  in  1 790  saw  the  close 
of  a  great  adventure.  On  August  9,  Boston  town  heard 
a  salute  of  thirteen  guns  down-harbor.  The  ship 
Columbia,  Captain  Robert  Gray,  with  the  first  Ameri- 
can ensign  to  girdle  the  globe  snapping  at  her  peak, 
was  greeting  the  Castle  after  an  absence  of  three  years. 
Coming  to  anchor  in  the  inner  harbor,  she  fired  another 
federal  salute  of  thirteen  guns,  which  a  "great  con- 
course of  citizens  assembled  on  the  various  wharfs  re- 
turned with  three  huzzas  and  a  hearty  welcome."  A 
rumor  ran  through  the  narrow  streets  that  a  native  of 

43 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

"Owyhee" —  a  Sandwich-Islander  —  was  on  board; 
and  before  the  day  was  out,  curious  Boston  was  grat- 
ified with  a  sight  of  him,  marching '  after  Captain 
Gray  to  call  on  Governor  Hancock.  Clad  in  a  feather 
cloak  of  golden  suns  set  in  flaming  scarlet,  that  came 
halfway  down  his  brown  legs;  crested  with  a  gorgeous 
feather  helmet  shaped  like  a  Greek  warrior's,  this 
young  Hawaiian  moved  up  State  Street  like  a  living 
flame. 

The  Columbia  had  logged  41,899  miles  since  her  de- 
parture from  Boston  on  September  30,  1787.  Her 
voyage  was  not  remarkable  as  a  feat  of  navigation; 
Magellan  and  Drake  had  done  the  trick  centuries  be- 
fore, under  far  more  hazardous  conditions.  It  was  the 
practical  results  that  counted.  The  Columbia's  first 
voyage  began  the  Northwest  fur  trade,  which  enabled 
the  merchant  adventurers  of  Boston  to  tap  the  vast 
reservoir  of  wealth  in  China. 


The  history  of  this  discovery  goes  back  to  the  close  of 
hostilities,  and  reveals  a  thread  of  optimism  and  energy 
running  through  years  of  depression.  In  December, 
1783,  the  little  fifty-five-ton  sloop  Harriet,  of  Hingham, 
Captain  Hallet,  sailed  from  Boston  with  a  cargo  of 
ginseng  for  China.  Putting  in  at  the  Cape  of  Good 
Hope,  she  met  with  some  British  East-Indiamen  who, 
alarmed  at  this  portent  of  Yankee  competition,  bought 
her  cargo  for  double  its  weight  in  Hyson  tea.  Captain 
Hallet  made  a  good  bargain,  but  lost  the  honor  of 
hoisting  the  first  American  ensign  in  Canton,  to  a  New 
York  ship,  the  Empress  of  China. 

Although  the  capital  and  the  initiative  were  of 
New  York,  the  direction  of  this  voyage  was  entrusted 

44 


PIONEERS  OF  THE  PACIFIC 

to  the  supercargo  l  of  the  Empress,  Major  Samuel 
Shaw,  of  Boston,  one  of  the  few  sons  of  New  England 
mercantile  families  who  had  served  through  the  entire 
war.  The  Empress  of  China  arrived  at  Macao  on 
August  23,  1784,  six  months  out  from  New  York;  and 
despite  Shaw's  inexperience  brought  home  a  cargo  that 
proved  America  need  pay  no  further  tribute  for  teas 
or  silks  to  the  Dutch  or  British.  Major  Shaw's  report 
to  the  government  was  published,  stimulating  others  to 
repeat  the  experiment;  and  he  freely  gave  of  his  ex- 
perience to  all  who  asked.  After  receiving  the  purely 
honorary  title  of  American  consul  at  Canton,  he  re- 
turned thither  in  1786,  on  the  ship  Hope  of  New  York, 
James  Magee  master,  to  establish  the  first  American 
commercial  house  in  China.  He  was  also  one  of  the 
first  in  the  East-India  trade.  A  short  residence  in 
Bombay  so  affected  his  liver,  that  he  died  on  a  home- 
ward voyage  in  1794,  in  his  fortieth  year.  Of  Samuel 
Shaw  it  was  said  by  that  rugged  shipmaster  of  Dux- 
bury,  Amasa  Delano,  that  "he  was  a  man  of  fine  tal- 
ents and  considerable  cultivation ;  he  placed  so  high 
a  value  upon  sentiments  of  honor  that  some  of  his 
friends  thought  it  was  carried  to  excess.  He  was  can- 
did, just  and  generous,  faithful  in  his  friendships,  an 
agreeable  companion,  and  manly  in  all  his  inter- 
course." 

Shortly  after  her  arrival  at  Canton,  the  Hope  was 
joined  by  the  Grand  Turk,  of  Salem,  Captain  Ebenezer 
West,  the  first  Massachusetts  vessel  to  visit  the  Far 

1  A  supercargo  was  the  representative  on  shipboard  of  owners  and 
consigners.  He  took  no  part  in  navigation,  but  handled  the  business  side 
of  the  voyage.  A  captain  often  acted  as  supercargo,  especially  when  a 
relative  of  the  owners;  in  such  cases  he  generally  carried  a  clerk  to  keep 
the  books.  Promotion  of  a  supercargo  to  the  command  of  a  vessel  was 
called  "coming  in  through  the  cabin  window";  promotion  of  a  foremast 
hand,  "coming  in  through  the  hawse-hole." 

45 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

East.  Her  return  to  Salem  on  May  22,  1787,  brought 
fabulous  profits  to  her  owner,  whetted  the  appetite  of 
every  Massachusetts  merchant,  and  (what  was  equally 
important)  fixed  their  good  wives'  ambition  on  a  chest 
of  Hyson,  a  China  silk  gown,  and  a  set  of  Canton  china. 

Although  America  was  outstripping  every  other 
nation  in  China  trade,  save  Britain,  she  could  not  long 
compete  with  Britain  without  a  suitable  medium. 
The  Canton  market  accepted  little  but  specie  and 
eastern  products.  British  merchants  could  import 
the  spoil  of  India  and  the  Moluccas  —  opium  and 
mummie  and  sharks'  fins  and  edible  birds'  nests.  Yet 
Britain  paid  for  the  major  part  of  her  teas  and  silks  in 
silver.  Massachusetts,  on  the  morrow  of  Shays's 
Rebellion,  could  not  afford  to  do  this.  Ginseng  could 
be  procured  and  sold  only  in  limited  quantities.  Unless 
some  new  product  were  found  to  tickle  the  palate  or 
suit  the  fancy  of  the  finicky  mandarins,  the  Grand 
Turk's  voyage  were  a  flash  in  the  pan.  To  find  some- 
thing salable  in  Canton,  was  the  riddle  of  the  China 
trade.  Boston  and  Salem  solved  it. 

The  ship  Columbia  was  fitted  out  by  a  group  of 
Boston  merchants  who  believed  the  solution  of  the 
problem  lay  in  the  furs  of  the  Northwest  Coast.  Cap- 
tain Cook's  third  voyage,  the  account  of  which  was 
published  in  1784,  and  John  Ledyard's  report  of  the 
Russian  fur  trade  in  Bering  Sea,  gave  them  the  hint. 
Possibly  they  had  also  learned  from  Samuel  Shaw  that 
a  few  Anglo- Indian  traders,  whom  Captain  Gray  later 
met  on  the  Coast,  had  already  sold  Alaskan  sea-otter  at 
Canton. 

Although  privately  financed,  with  fourteen  shares  of 
$3500  each,1  the  voyage  was  conceived  in  the  public 

1  The  shareholders  were  Joseph  Barrell,  Samuel  Brown,  and  Captain 
Crowell  Hatch,  prominent  Boston  merchants;  Charles  Bulfinch  the 

46 


CAPTAIN  GRAY  ASHORE  AT  WHAMPOA 


SHIP  COLUMBIA  ATTACKED  BY  INDIANS  IN  JUAN  DE  FUCA  STRAIT 


PIONEERS  OF  THE  PACIFIC 

spirit  of  the  old  merchant  adventurers.  A  medal  was 
struck  to  distribute  among  the  natives.  An  expert 
furrier,  a  surgeon,  and  (luckily  for  us)  an  artist  were 
taken.  John  Kendrick,  of  Wareham,  commanded 
both  the  expedition,  and  the  ship  Columbia,  eighty- 
three  feet  long,  two  hundred  twelve  tons  burthen, 
built  at  Hobart's  Landing  on  the  North  River,  Scitu- 
ate,  in  1773.  Robert  Gray,  born  of  Plymouth  stock  in 
Tiverton,  Rhode  Island,  and  a  former  officer  in  the 
Continental  navy,  was  master  of  the  ninety-ton  sloop 
Lady  Washington,  which  accompanied  the  Columbia  as 
tender.  Both  vessels  made  an  unusually  long  passage, 
and  encountered  heavy  westerly  gales  off  Cape  Horn, 
which  they  were  the  first  North  American  vessels  to 
pass.  On  April  i,  1788,  in  latitude  57°  57'  south,  they 
parted  company.  Gray  reached  the  coast  of  "New 
Albion"  eleven  months  out  of  Boston,  and  was  joined 
by  the  Columbia  at  Nootka  Sound,  the  fur-trading 
center  on  Vancouver  Island.  It  was  too  late  to  do  any 
trading  that  season,  so  both  vessels  were  anchored  in  a 
sheltered  cove,  while  the  crew  lived  ashore  in  log  huts 
and  built  a  small  boat.  In  the  summer  of  1789,  before  a 
full  cargo  of  skins  had  been  obtained,  provisions  began 
to  run  low.  Captain  Kendrick  therefore  remained  be- 
hind, but  sent  Gray  in  the  Columbia  to  Canton,  where 
he  exchanged  his  cargo  of  peltry  for  tea,  and  returned 
to  Boston  around  the  world. 

The  Columbia's  first  voyage,  like  most  pioneering 
enterprises,  was  not  a  financial  success.  Fourteen 
American  vessels  preceded  her  to  Canton,  and  most  of 
them  reached  home  before  her.  Four  of  them,  belong- 
ing to  Elias  Hasket  Derby,  of  Salem,  had  approached 
the  China  market  from  a  different  angle  and  with 

architect,  John  Derby,  son  of  E.  H.  Derby,  of  Salem,  and  J.  M.  Pintard, 
a  merchant  of  New  York. 

47 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

greater  success.  The  ship  Astrea,  Captain  James 
Magee,1  carried  a  miscellaneous  cargo,  which  had 
taken  almost  a  year  to  assemble.  The  barques  Light 
Horse  and  Atlantic  exchanged  provisions  at  Mauritius 
(lie  de  France)  for  bills  which  at  Bombay,  Calcutta, 
and  Surat  bought  a  good  assortment  for  Canton ;  the 
brig  Three  Sisters,  Captain  Benjamin  Webb,  disposed 
of  a  mixed  cargo  at  Batavia,  where  she  was  chartered 
by  a  Dutch  merchant  to  carry  Java  products  to  Canton. 
She  and  the  Atlantic  were  there  sold,  and  the  entire 
proceeds  invested  in  silks,  chinaware,  and  three- 
quarters  of  a  million  pounds  of  tea,  which  were  loaded 
on  the  two  larger  vessels. 

Elias  Hasket  Derby,  ignorant  even  of  the  arrival  of 
his  vessels  at  Canton,  was  beginning  to  feel  a  bit  nerv- 
ous toward  the  end  of  May,  1790,  when  a  brig  arrived 
with  news  of  them.  On  June  I,  the  Astrea  was  sighted 
in  Salem  Bay.  But  Mr.  Derby's  troubles  were  not  yet 
over.  On  June  15,  the  Light  Horse  appeared;  but  for 
lack  of  wind  was  forced  to  anchor  off  Marblehead.  In 
the  night  an  easterly  gale  sprang  up.  The  vessel  was 
too  close  inshore  to  make  sail  and  claw  off.  Early  in 
the  morning  her  crew  felt  that  sickening  sensation 
of  dragging  anchors.  Astern,  nearer,  nearer  came  the 
granite  rocks  of  Marblehead,  where  the  ragged  popula- 
tion perched  like  buzzards,  not  displeased  at  the  pros- 
pect of  rich  wreckage  at  Salem's  expense.  "King 
Darby"  hurried  over  in  his  post-chaise  to  watch  half 
his  fortune  inching  toward  disaster  on  his  very  door- 
step. Finally,  with  but  a  few  yards  to  spare  between 
rudder  and  rocks,  the  anchors  bit,  and  saved  the  Light 

1  Captain  James  Magee  (1750-1801),  described  as  "aconvivial,  noble- 
hearted  Irishman,"  during  the  Revolution  commanded  the  man-of-war 
brig  General  Arnold,  which  was  wrecked  in  Plymouth  Bay.  He  mar- 
ried Margaret  Elliot,  sister  of  Mrs.  Thomas  Handasyd  Perkins,  and 
lived  in  the  old  Governor  Shirley  mansion  at  Roxbury. 

48 


PIONEERS  OF  THE  PACIFIC 

Horse  until  a  shift  of  wind  brought  her  to  the  haven 
where  she  would  be. 

Two  months  later,  Captain  Gray  entered  Boston 
with  a  damaged  cargo  to  find  Captain  Magee  adver- 
tising China  goods  in  the  Boston  papers.  But  the 
Columbia  had  opened  a  channel  to  fortune  that  her 
rivals  were  quick  to  follow. 

As  supercargo  of  the  Astrea,  Mr.  Derby  had  chosen 
Captain  Magee's  young  brother-in-law,  Thomas  Hand- 
asyd  Perkins.  The  Boston  "  Herald  of  Freedom  "  for 
January  6,  1789,  announced  that  all  persons  "wishing 
to  adventure"  aboard  the  Aslrea  "may  be  assured  of 
Mr.  Perkins'  assertions  for  their  interest."  Those  who 
accepted  were  not  disappointed;  and  the  pedigrees  of 
many  Boston  fortunes  can  be  traced  to  that  China 
voyage  and  its  consequences.  Young  Perkins  inherited 
an  aptitude  for  the  fur  trade  from  his  grandfather, 
Thomas  Handasyd  Peck,  the  leading  fur  exporter  of 
the  province;  and  he  had  learned  the  mercantile  busi- 
ness at  his  mother's  knee.  The  widow  Perkins,  one  of 
those  remarkable  New  England  women  of  the  Revo- 
lutionary period,  carried  on  her  husband's  business 
with  such  success  that  letters  used  to  be  received  from 
abroad  addressed  to  "Elizabeth  Perkins,  Esq."  No 
wonder  that,  with  such  forbears,  Thomas  Handasyd 
Perkins  became  the  first  of  Boston  merchants,  both  in 
fortune  and  in  public  spirit. 

On  returning  to  Boston  in  1790,  young  Perkins 
bought  the  little  seventy-ton  brigantine  Hope,  and 
sent  her  under  Captain  Gray's  former  mate,  Joseph 
Ingraham,  to  the  Northwest  Coast.  In  a  single  summer 
she  collected  fourteen  hundred  sea-otter  skins.  The 
Columbia  started  on  her  second  voyage  in  September, 
1790,  and  the  brigantine  Hancock,  one  hundred  fifty- 
seven  tons,  Samuel  Crowell  master,  two  months  later. 

49 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

Lieutenant  Thomas  Lamb  and  his  brother  James, 
merchants,  joined  Captain  Magee  in  building  at  Bos- 
ton, the  ship  Margaret,  one  hundred  fifty  tons,  which 
sailed  under  the  latter's  command  on  December  24, 
1791,  "bound  on  a  voyage  of  observation  and  enter- 
prise to  the  North- Western  Coast  of  this  Continent." 
Others  quickly  followed. 

By  1792  the  trade  route  Boston-Northwest  Coast- 
Canton-Boston  was  fairly  established.  Not  only  the 
merchantmen  of  Massachusetts,  but  the  whalers  (of 
whom  more  anon),  balked  of  their  accustomed  traffic 
by  European  exclusiveness,  were  swarming  around  the 
Horn  in  search  of  new  markets  and  sources  of  supply. 
It  was  on  May  12,  1792,  that  Captain  Gray  (according 
to  the  seventeen-year-old  fifth  mate  of  the  Columbia, 
John  Boit,  Jr.)  "saw  an  appearance  of  a  spacious 
harbour  abreast  the  Ship,  haul'd  our  wind  for  it, 
observ'd  two  sand  bars  making  off,  with  a  passage 
between  them  to  a  fine  river.  Out  pinnace  and  sent 
her  in  ahead  and  followed  with  the  Ship  under  short 
sail,  carried  in  from  1/2  three  to  7  fm.  and  when  over  the 
bar  had  10  fm.  water,  quite  fresh.  The  River  extended 
to  the  NE.  as  far  as  eye  cou'd  reach,  and  water  fit  to 
drink  as  far  down  as  the  Bars,  at  the  entrance.  We 
directed  our  course  up  this  noble  River  in  search  of  a 
Village.  The  beach  was  lin'd  with  Natives,  who  ran 
along  shore  following  the  Ship.  Soon  after,  above  20 
Canoes  came  off,  and  brought  a  good  lot  of  Furs,  and 
Salmon,  which  last  they  sold  two  for  a  board  Nail. 
The  furs  we  likewise  bought  cheap,  for  Copper  and 
Cloth.  They  appear'd  to  view  the  Ship  with  the  great- 
est astonishment  and  no  doubt  we  was  the  first  civ- 
ilized people  that  they  ever  saw.  At  length  we  arriv'd 
opposite  to  a  large  village,  situate  on  the  North  side  of 
the  River,  about  5  leagues  from  the  entrance. . . .  Capt. 

50 


THOMAS  HANDASYD  PERKINS 


PIONEERS  OF  THE  PACIFIC 

Gray  named  this  river  Columbia's  and  the  North  en- 
trance Cape  Hancock,  and  the  South  Point,  Adams. 
This  River  in  my  opinion,  wou'd  be  a  fine  place  for  to 
set  up  a  Factory. . . .  The  river  abounds  with  excellent 
Salmon." 

On  her  first  voyage,  the  Columbia  had  solved  the 
riddle  of  the  China  trade.  On  her  second,  empire  fol- 
lowed in  the  wake. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  NORTHWEST  FUR  TRADE 
1788-1812 

BEFORE  the  Columbia  returned  again,  another  rash 
enterprise  of  Boston  merchants,  an  attempt  to  enter 
the  Canton  market  through  imitation  of  the  British 
East  India  Company,  had  failed.  The  ship  Massachu- 
setts, of  almost  eight  hundred  tons  burthen,  the  largest 
vessel  constructed  to  that  date  in  an  American  ship- 
yard, was  built  at  Quincy  in  1789  for  Samuel  Shaw 
and  other  Boston  merchants.  Her  model  and  dimen- 
sions were  taken  from  a  British  East-Indiaman,  and 
her  equipment  and  roster,  with  midshipmen  and  cap- 
tain's servants,  imitated  the  Honourable  Company  so 
far  as  Yankee  economy  permitted.  Under  the  com- 
mand of  Captain  Job  Prince,  the  Massachusetts  sailed 
from  Boston  on  March  28,  1790.  She  carried  a  gen- 
eral cargo,  which  her  owners  expected  to  exchange  at 
Batavia  for  goods  suitable  for  Canton.  But  the  Dutch 
authorities  (as  one  might  have  foreseen)  refused  a 
permit.  When  the  Massachusetts  arrived  at  Canton 
with  an  unsalable  cargo,  after  a  long  and  tempestuous 
voyage,  Samuel  Shaw  gladly  seized  an  opportunity 
to  sell  her  for  $65,000  to  the  Danish  East  India 
Company.  This  experience  prejudiced  American  ship- 
owners against  vessels  larger  than  five  hundred  tons, 
and  determined  the  merchants  of  Boston  to  concen- 
trate on  the  Northwest  fur  trade. 

"The  habits  and  ordinary  pursuits  of  the  New  Eng- 
landers  qualified  them  in  a  peculiar  manner  for  carry- 
ing on  this  trade,"  wrote  one  of  them,  "and  the  em- 

52 


THE  NORTHWEST  FUR  TRADE 

barrassed  state  of  Europe  gave  them . . .  almost  a 
monopoly  of  the  most  lucrative  part  of  it."  Salem 
merchants  preferred  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  route, 
over  which  they  attained  their  first  success;  English- 
men, Philadelphians,  and  New  Yorkers  soon  dropped 
out;  and  by  1801,  out  of  sixteen  ships  on  "The  Coast" 
(as  Boston  called  it  this  early)  all  but  two  were  Bos- 
tonian.  The  masters  and  mates,  and  at  first  the  crews, 
were  for  the  most  part  Bostonian,  and  the  vessels  of 
Boston  registry.  So  it  is  no  wonder  that  the  Chinook 
jargon,  the  pidgin  English  of  the  Coast,  names  United 
States  citizens  "Boston  men"  as  distinguished  from 
"  Kintshautsh  (King  George)  men." 

The  most  successful  vessels  in  the  Northwest  fur 
trade  were  small,  well-built  brigs  and  ships  of  one 
hundred  to  two  hundred  and  fifty  tons  burthen  (say 
sixty-five  to  ninety  feet  long),  constructed  in  the  ship- 
yards from  the  Kennebec  to  Scituate.  Larger  vessels 
were  too  difficult  to  work  through  the  intricacies  of  the 
Northwest  Coast.  They  were  heavily  manned,  in  case 
of  an  Indian  attack;  and  copper-bottomed  by  Paul 
Revere's  newly  invented  process,  to  prevent  accumu- 
lating barnacles  and  weeds  in  tropic  waters.  The  Win- 
ships'  Albatross,  which  neglected  this  precaution,  took 
almost  six  months  to  round  Cape  Horn,  and  found  her 
speed  reduced  to  two  knots  an  hour.  Clearing  from 
Boston  in  the  autumn,  in  order  to  pass  the  high  lati- 
tudes during  the  Antarctic  summer,  they  generally 
arrived  on  the  Coast  by  spring. 

"The  passage  around  Cape  Horn  from  the  East- 
ward I  positively  assert,"  wrote  Captain  Porter,  of  the 
frigate  Essex,  "is  the  most  dangerous,  most  difficult, 
and  attended  with  more  hardships,  than  that  of  the 
same  distance  in  any  other  part  of  the  world."  A 
passage  in  which  many  a  great  ship  has  met  her  death ; 

53 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

in  which  the  head  winds  and  enormous  seas  put  small 
vessels  at  a  great  disadvantage.  Yet,  so  far  as  I  have 
learned,  not  one  of  these  Boston  Nor'westmen  failed 
to  round  the  Horn  in  safety. 

To  obtain  fresh  provisions  and  prevent  scurvy,  the 
Nor'west  traders  broke  their  voyage  at  least  twice; 
at  the  Cape  Verde  Islands,  the  Falklands,  sometimes 
Galapagos  for  a  giant  tortoise,  and  invariably  Hawaii. 
For  these  were  leisurely  days  in  seafaring,  when  a 
homeward-bound  vessel  would  stand  by  for  hours  while 
the  crew  of  an  outward-bounder  wrote  letters  home. 
Captain  Ingraham  on  his  passage  out  in  the  Hope,  in 
1791,  discovered  and  named  the  Washington  group  of 
the  Marquesas  Islands,  whose  women  (so  he  informed 
the  jealous  officers  of  the  Columbia)  were  "as  much 
handsomer  than  the  natives  of  the  Sandwich  Islands 
as  the  women  of  Boston  are  handsomer  than  a  Guinea 
negro." 

After  the  soft  embrace  of  South  Sea  Islands,  the 
savage  grandeur  of  the  Northwest  Coast  threw  a  chill 
on  first-comers.  Behind  rocks  and  shingle  beaches,  on 
which  the  long  Pacific  rollers  broke  and  roared  in- 
cessantly, spruce  and  fir-clad  mountains  rose  into 
the  clouds,  which  distilled  the  sea-borne  moisture  in 
almost  daily  showers.  The  jagged  and  picturesque 
coast-line  —  a  Maine  on  magnificent  scale  —  offered 
countless  harbors;  but  behind  every  beach  on  the 
outer  margin  was  a  mass  of  dank  undergrowth, 
impenetrable  even  for  the  natives,  whose  dugout 
canoes  served  for  hunting  and  fishing,  transport  and 
war. 

On  making  his  landfall,  a  Boston  Nor'westman  came 
to  anchor  off  the  nearest  Indian  village,  bartered  so 
long  as  he  could  do  business,  and  then  moved  on  to  one 
after  another  of  the  myriad  bays  and  coves  until  his 

54 


THE  NORTHWEST  FUR  TRADE 

hold  was  full  of  valuable  furs.  It  was  a  difficult  and 
hazardous  trade,  requiring  expert  discrimination  in 
making  up  a  cargo,  the  highest  skill  in  navigation,  and 
unceasing  vigilance  in  all  dealings  with  the  Indians. 

The  Northwest  Indians  were  dangerous  customers. 
Captain  Kendrick,  on  parting  with  Gray  during  their 
pioneer  voyage,  wrote  him,  "treet  the  Natives  with 
Respect  where  Ever  you  go.  Cultivate  frindship  with 
them  as  much  as  possibel  and  take  Nothing  from  them 
But  what  you  pay  them  for  according  to  a  fair  agree*, 
ment,  and  not  suffer  your  peopel  to  affront  them  or 
treet  them  111."  Gray  obeyed,  although  he  found 
the  Indians  already  treacherous  and  aggressive;  the 
result,  he  believed,  of  English  outrages.  The  Boston 
men,  both  from  interest  and  humanity,  endeavored  by 
just  and  tactful  dealings  to  win  the  natives'  confidence. 
But  their  work  was  hampered  by  irresponsible  fly-by- 
nights  who  would  pirate  a  cargo  of  skins,  and  never 
return. 

In  the  early  days,  scarcely  a  voyage  passed  without 
a  battle.  Captain  Kendrick  lost  a  son,  and  was  once 
driven  from  his  own  vessel  by  an  Indian  Amazon  and 
her  braves.  The  Columbia  lost  her  second  mate,  and 
several  members  of  her  crew  at  "  Murderers'  Harbor." 
In  1803,  the  natives  near  Nootka  Sound  attacked 
the  Amorys'  ship  Boston,  Captain  John  Salter,  and 
slaughtered  all  the  ship's  company  but  two;  one  of 
whom,  John  Jewitt,  lived  to  write  a  narrative  that 
thrilled  generations  of  schoolboys.  Given  a  firm  mas- 
ter and  stout  crew,  the  Nor'west  trading  vessels  could 
take  care  of  themselves.  Beside  swivel-guns  on  the 
bulwarks,  they  were  armed  with  six  to  twenty  cannon, 
kept  well  shotted  with  grape,  langrage  or  canister; 
and  provided  with  boarding  nettings,  muskets,  pistols, 
cutlasses  and  boarding  pikes.  The  quarterdecks  were 

55 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

loopholed  for  musket  fire,  the  hatches  were  veritable 
'pill-boxes.'  When  a  flotilla  of  dugouts  surrounded 
the  vessel,  only  a  few  natives  were  permitted  on  board 
at  one  time,  and  men  armed  with  blunderbusses  were 
sent  into  the  cross-trees,  lest  the  waiting  customers 
lose  patience. 

Even  peaceably  inclined,  the  natives  were  hard  to 
please.  "They  do  not  seem  to  covet  usefull  things," 
writes  Captain  Gray's  clerk,  "but  anything  that  looks 
pleasing  to  the  eye,  or  what  they  call  riches."  They 
rated  a  fellow- Indian  socially  by  his  superfluous 
blankets,  by  copper  tea-kettles  that  were  never  used, 
and  by  bunches  of  old  keys  worn  like  a  necklace  and 
kept  bright  by  constant  rubbing.  When  rebuked  by 
Captain  Sturgis  for  this  wasteful  display,  an  Indian 
chief  anticipated  Veblen  by  adverting  to  the  Boston 
fashion  of  placing  brass  balls  on  iron  fences,  to  tarnish 
every  night  and  be  polished  by  the  housemaid  every 
morning! 

The  Indians  evidently  had  more  discrimination  than 
generally  acknowledged,  for  on  her  first  voyage  the 
Columbia  carried  large  numbers  of  snuff-bottles,  rat- 
traps,  Jews'-harps,  and  pocket  mirrors,  which  (except 
for  the  last)  were  a  dead  loss.  Her  second  cargo,  in 
1790,  is  typical  of  the  Northwest  fur  trade  as  long  as  it 
lasted.  From  Herman  Brimmer  were  bought  143 
sheets  of  copper,  many  pieces  of  blue,  red,  and  green 
'duffills'  and  scarlet  coating.  Solomon  Cotton  sold 
the  Columbia's  owners  4261  quarter-pound  '  chissells ' ; 
Asa  Hammond,  150  pairs  shoes  at  75  cents;  Benjamin 
Greene,  Jr.,  blue  duffle  trousers  at  92  cents,  pea 
jackets,  Flushing  great  coats,  watch-coats  and  'fear- 
noughts';1 Samuel  Parkman,  6  gross  'gimblets,'  and 

1  A  stout  woolen  cloth,  used  for  outside  clothing  at  sea.  The  chisels 
were  merely  short  strips  of  iron.  Duffles,  also  a  coarse  woolen,  had  been 

56 


THE  NORTHWEST  FUR  TRADE 

12  gross  buttons;  Baker  &  Brewer,  striped  duffle 
blanketing;  Samuel  Fales,  14  M  2od.  nails;  and  the 
United  States  government,  100  old  muskets  and 
blunderbusses.1  Very  few  of  these  articles  were  manu- 
factured in  Massachusetts,  and  sometimes  a  Nor'west- 
man  would  make  up  a  cargo  in  England  before  starting 
for  the  Coast.  New  England  rum,  that  ancient  medium 
for  savage  barter,  is  curiously  absent  from  the  North- 
west fur  trade.  Molasses  and  ship-biscuit  were  used 
instead  of  liquor  to  treat  the  natives. 

The  principal  fur  sought  by  Boston  traders  was  that 
of  the  sea-otter,  of  which  the  mandarins  had  never 
been  able  to  obtain  enough  from  Russian  hunters. 
Next  to  a  beautiful  woman  and  a  lovely  infant,  said 
Captain  Sturgis,  a  prime  sea-otter  skin  two  feet  by 
five,  with  its  short,  glossy  jet-black  fur,  was  the  finest 
natural  object  in  the  world.  Its  price  varied  consider- 
ably. Captain  Gray's  mate  obtained  two  hundred 
skins  at  Queen  Charlotte's  Island  for  two  hundred 
trade  chisels  (mere  bits  of  strap  iron) ;  but  at  Nootka 
Sound  the  price  was  ten  chisels  apiece,  or  six  inches 
square  of  sheet  copper.  Most  vessels  took  a  metal- 
used  by  New  Englanders  in  the  beaver  trade  since  the  seventeenth 
century. 

1  Most  Boston  business  firms  who  do  not  figure  in  the  invoices  are 
found  among  those  supplying  the  outfit.  John  Derby,  part  owner,  fur- 
nished 4  cannon  and  8  swivels  (probably  from  one  of  his  father's  former 
privateers),  and  Captain  D.  Hathorn  (great-uncle  of  Nathaniel  Haw- 
thorne) freighted  them  from  Salem.  S.  &  S.  Salisbury  furnished  twine  and 
lead  pencils;  John  Joy,  one  medicine  chest;  Thomas  Amory  Jr.  &  Co., 
14  bbls.  pitch  and  turpentine;  J.  &  T.  Lamb,  6  anchors;  Josiah  Bradlee, 
horn  Mantherns,'  tin  kettles  and  a  coffee  pot;  Samuel  Whitwell,  a 
blacksmith's  bellows;  J.  Levering  &  Sons,  27  Ib.  tallow;  Elisha  Sigourney, 
71  Ib.  grape  shot;  J.  L.  &  B.  Austin,  cordage;  Jonathan  Winship,  135 
bbls.  beef;  Mungo  Mackay,  3  hds.  N.E.  rum;  Lewis  Hoyt,  2  hds.  W.I. 
rum  and  3  kegs  essence  of  spruce;  Wm.  Boardman  Jr.,  3  ironbound 
casks;  Robt.  &  Jos.  Davis  20  bbls.  cider,  6  of  cranberries,  2  of  barberries 
and  10  pigs.  (Columbia  MSS.,  59.) 

57 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

worker  to  make  tools  and  weapons  to  order.  Captain 
Ingraham's  armorer  made  iron  collars  and  bracelets, 
which  became  all  the  rage  on  the  Coast  and  brought 
three  otter  skins  each.  Captain  Sturgis,  observing 
that  the  Indians  used  ermine  pelts  for  currency, 
procured  five  thousand  of  them  at  the  Leipzig  fair  for 
thirty  cents  apiece.  On  his  next  voyage  he  purchased 
one  morning  five  hundred  and  sixty  sea-otter  skins, 
worth  fifty  dollars  apiece  in  Canton,  at  the  rate  of  five 
ermines,  or  a  dollar  and  a  half,  each.  But  he  so  in- 
flated the  currency  that  it  soon  lost  value !  Later,  not- 
ing that  war-captives  were  a  recognized  form  of  wealth 
among  the  Indians,  some  Boston  traders  began  buying 
them  from  tribes  which  were  long  on  slaves,  and  selling 
them  to  tribes  which  were  short.  This  form  of  specu- 
lation in  foreign  exchange  was  sternly  reproved  by 
George  Lyman,  and  forbidden  to  his  vessels  and  ship- 
masters. 

The  first  white  men  to  attempt  a  permanent  estab- 
lishment in  the  Oregon  country  were  the  Winship 
brothers  of  Brighton  —  Abiel,  the  Boston  merchant, 
Captain  Jonathan,  Jr.,  and  Captain  Nathan,  who  com- 
manded the  family  ship  Albatross.  On  June  4,  1810, 
she  sailed  forty  miles  up  the  Columbia  River  and 
anchored  off  an  oak  grove,  where  her  crew  broke 
ground  for  a  vegetable  garden,  and  started  work  on  a 
log  house.  But  the  Chinook  Indians,  the  fur  middle- 
men of  Oregon,  would  brook  no  competition.  Having 
no  warships  or  marines  to  back  them  up,  the  Winships 
were  forced  to  evacuate.  It  was  a  sad  disappointment. 
Jonathan  Winship,  Jr.,  whose  hobby  was  horticulture, 
"hoped  to  have  planted  a  Garden  of  Eden  on  the 
shores  of  the  Pacific,  and  made  that  wilderness  to 
blossom  like  the  rose."  Others  fulfilled  his  dream, 
bringing  slips  from  the  very  rose-garden  of  Brighton 

58 


THE  NORTHWEST  FUR  TRADE 

where  Captain  Jonathan  spent  the  long  tranquil  years 
of  retirement  he  had  earned  so  well.1 

Unless  exceedingly  lucky,  vessels  remained  eighteen 
months  to  two  years  on  the  Coast,  before  proceeding 
to  Canton,  and  it  was  commonly  three  years  before 
Long  Wharf  saw  them  again.  Small  brigs  and  sloops 
were  sent  out,  or  built  on  the  Coast,  to  continue  the 
collection  of  furs  during  the  absence  of  the  larger  vessel. 

The  Sandwich  Islands  proved  an  ideal  spot  to  re- 
fresh a  scorbutic  crew,  and  even  to  complete  the  cargo. 
Captain  Kendrick  (who  plied  between  Canton  and  the 
Coast  in  the  Lady  Washington  until  his  death  in  1794) 
discovered  sandalwood,  an  article  much  in  demand 
at  Canton,  growing  wild  on  the  Island  of  Kauai.  A 
vigorous  trade  with  the  native  chiefs  in  this  fragrant 
commodity  was  started  by  Boston  fur- traders  in  "the 
Islands";  leading  to  more  Hawaiian  visits  to  New 
England,  to  the  missionary  effort  of  1820,  and  even- 
tually to  annexation. 

Another  variation  to  the  standard  China  voyage 
was  contraband  fur-trading  along  the  coast  of  Spanish 
California.  According  to  H.  H.  Bancroft,  the  first 
American  vessel  to  anchor  in  California  waters  was 
the  ship  Otter  of  Boston,  one  hundred  and  sixty-eight 
tons,  Ebenezer  Dorr,  Jr.,  master,  which  put  in  at 
Monterey  for  provisions  in  1796.  All  trade  and  inter- 
course between  Boston  men  and  Californians  was  con- 
traband; but  both  seized  every  opportunity  to  flout 
the  Laws  of  the  Indies. 

1  "Solid  Men  of  Boston"  (MS.),  70.  Jonathan,  Jr.,  founded  the  beef- 
slaughtering  business  at  Brighton  in  1775,  and  supplied  the  American 
army  and  French  fleet  during  the  Revolution.  Charles  Winship,  another 
brother  in  this  remarkable  family,  died  at  Valparaiso  about  1800,  when 
in  command  of  the  brigantine  Betsy,  bound  for  the  Northwest  Coast. 
A  second  Captain  Charles  Winship,  son  of  a  fifth  brother,  died  at  Val- 
paraiso in  1819  or  1820  when  in  command  of  a  sealing  voyage. 

59 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

Boston  vessels  generally  carried  a  Carta  de  Amistad 
from  "Don  Juan  Stoughton,  Consul  de  S.M.C.  para 
los  Estados  Unidos  de  New  Hampshire,  Massachu- 
setts," etc.  This  was  to  be  used  if  forced  to  put  into 
one  of  His  Catholic  Majesty's  ports  "par  mal  Tiempo 
o  otre  acontecimiento  imprevisto"  —  which  exigency 
was  pretty  sure  to  occur  when  the  land  breeze  smelt 
sea-otterish.  Richard  J.  Cleveland,  of  Salem,  owner 
and  master  of  the  brig  Lelia  Byrd,  tried  to  make  off 
with  some  pelts  under  the  very  nose  of  Commandant 
Don  Manuel  Rodriguez,  who  retaliated  in  the  blood- 
less "Battle  of  San  Diego"  on  March  21,  1803.  But 
untoward  incidents  were  rare.  At  his  next  port,  San 
Quintin,  the  Lelia  Byrd's  people  got  on  beautifully  with 
a  group  of  mission  fathers  who  came  down  to  trade  and 
gossip.  They  spent  two  merry  weeks  together  on  this 
lonely  shore,  dining  alternately  in  tent  and  cabin, 
inaugurating  a  half-century  of  close  and  friendly  rela- 
tions between  Puritan  and  Padre  on  the  California 
coast.  Nothing  like  a  common  interest  in  smuggling  to 
smooth  religious  differences! 

Captain  Joseph  O'Cain,  of  Boston,  in  a  ship  of 
two  hundred  and  eighty  tons  named  after  himself  and 
built  on  North  River  for  the  Winships,  inaugurated  a 
new  system  of  otter-hunting  in  1804.  Putting  in  at 
New  Archangel  (Sitka),  he  persuaded  Baranov,  the 
genial  Russian  factor,  to  lend  him  a  hundred  and  fifty 
Aleut  Indians,  on  shares.  These  expert  otter-hunters, 
putting  out  from  the  ship  in  their  skin  canoes,  like 
Gloucester  fishermen  in  dories,  obtained  eleven  hun- 
dred sea-otter  pelts  for  Captain  O'Cain  in  his  first 
California  cruise.  Kills  were  made  under  the  very  walls 
of  the  San  Francisco  presidio.  Three  years  later, 
O'Cain  chartered  his  ship  Eclipse  of  Boston  to  the 
Russian-American  Company,  traded  their  furs  at 

60 


THE  NORTHWEST  FUR  TRADE 

Canton,  visited  Nagasaki  and  Petropavlovsk,  lost  the 
vessel  on  the  Aleutian  Islands,  built  another  out  of  the 
wreck,  and  returned  to  trade  once  more.1  California 
sea-otter  and  fur-seal  hunting,  combined  with  contra- 
band mission  trade,  was  pursued  with  much  success 
for  about  ten  years,  when  the  Russians  declined 
further  aid  to  their  competitors. 

Another  class  of  Pacific  fur-traders  were  the  "seal- 
skinners."  About  1783,  the  ship  States,  owned  by  a 
Boston  woman,2  was  fitted  out  for  a  voyage  to  the 
Falklands  in  search  of  fur-seal  and  sea-elephant  oil. 
Some  of  the  sealskins  obtained  were  carried  on  a 
venture  to  China,  and  the  result  encouraged  others  to 
follow.  Although  sealskins  brought  but  a  dollar  or  two 
at  Canton,  such  quantities  (even  a  hundred  thou- 
sand on  a  single  voyage)  could  be  obtained  merely  by 
landing  on  a  beach  and  clubbing  the  helpless  animals, 
that  vessels  were  especially  fitted  out  to  go  in  search 
of  them,  and  the  smaller  Nor'westmen  occasionally 
picked  up  a  few  thousand  on  their  way  to  the  Coast. 
Connecticut  was  more  conspicuous  in  this  trade  than 
Massachusetts;  but  several  vessels  were  commanded 
by  Nantucketers,  and  others  were  owned  there  and  in 
Boston  or  Salem.  As  in  whaling,  the  men  were  gen- 
erally shipped  on  shares,  and  often  cheated  out  of 
them.  Masafuero,  in  the  Juan  Fernandez  group,  was 
the  center  for  seal-killing;  but  other  islands  off  the 
Chilian  coast,  St.  Paul  and  Amsterdam  Islands  in  the 

1  One  would  like  to  know  more  of  this  Captain  O'Cain.  He  was  an 
Irishman  whose  parents  lived  in  Boston,  and  first  visited  the  Coast  in 
1795  on  an  English  vessel,  whose  master,  at  his  request,  left  him  at 
Santa  Barbara.  He  managed  to  return  to  Boston  in  time  to  be  married 
there  in  1799. 

*  '  Lady  '  or  '  Madam '  Haley,  as  she  was  called  in  Boston,  was  a  sister 
of  the  famous  Jack  Wilkes:  for  second  husband,  she  married  Patrick 
Jeffery,  a  Boston  merchant. 

6l 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

Indian  Ocean,  South  Georgia,  the  Farralones  and 
Santa  Catalina  off  California,  were  visited  before  1810. 
Gangs  of  sealers  would  be  left  on  some  lonely  island 
in  the  South  Pacific,  while  the  vessel  smuggled  goods 
into  Callao,  Concepcion,  Valparaiso,  and  smaller  places 
like  Coquimbo  and  Pisco.  Amasa  Delano,  of  Duxbury 
(private,  U.S.A.,  at  fourteen,  privateersman  at  sixteen, 
master  shipbuilder  at  twenty-one,  second  mate  of  the 
ship  Massachusetts),  with  his  brother  built  the  sealers 
Perseverance  and  Pilgrim,  and  sailed  as  far  as  Tas- 
mania, where  they  matched  rascalities  and  exchanged 
brutalities  with  one  of  the  British  convict  colonies. 
It  was  a  Boston  sealskinner,  the  Dorrs'  Otter,  which 
rescued  from  Botany  Bay  Thomas  Muir,  one  of  the 
victims  of  Pitt's  Sedition  Act.  Eighty  years  later, 
New  Bedford  whalers  were  extending  the  same  cour- 
tesy to  exiled  Fenians. 

The  first  commercial  relations  between  the  United 
States  and  the  west  coast  of  South  America,  were 
established  by  sealers,  Nor'westmen,  and  whalers 
putting  in  "under  stress  of  weather"  to  obtain  provi- 
sions, and  indulge  in  the  favorite  Yankee  pastime  of 
swapping.  To  a  certain  extent  they  imported  ideas; 
Richard  J.  Cleveland  made  a  point  of  spreading 
republican  propaganda  at  Valparaiso.  The  manner  of 
their  reception  depended  on  the  official  mood.  Bernard 
Magee  in  the  ship  Jefferson  had  only  to  present  his 
ship's  papers,  signed  by  Washington,  to  receive  the 
freedom  of  Valparaiso  from  Governor-General  Don 
Ambrosio  O'Higgins.  Others  were  not  so  fortunate, 
and  many  a  poor  sailor,  forced  against  his  will  into 
smuggling,  spent  in  consequence  a  term  of  years  in  a 
South  American  calaboose. 

Whaling  was  another  industry  of  maritime  Massa- 
chusetts that  renewed  its  strength  in  the  Pacific.  But 

62 


THE  NORTHWEST  FUR  TRADE 

we  must  postpone  our  whaling  voyage  lest  we  lose  sight 
of  the  Canton  market,  the  golden  lodestone  for  every 
otter-skin,  sealskin,  or  sandalwood  log  collected  on 
Northwest  Coast,  California,  or  Pacific  Islands. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  CANTON  MARKET 
1784-1812 

THE  Northwest  trade,  the  Hawaiian  trade,  and  the  fur- 
seal  fisheries  were  only  a  means  to  an  end:  the  pro- 
curing of  Chinese  teas  and  textiles,  to  sell  again  at 
home  and  abroad.  China  was  the  only  market  for  sea- 
otter,  and  Canton  the  only  Chinese  port  where  foreign- 
ers were  allowed  to  exchange  it. 

Major  Shaw's  description  of  the  Canton  trade  in 
1784  would  fit  any  year  to  1840.  After  a  voyage  of 
several  weeks  from  Hawaii,  a  Yankee  trader  passed  be- 
tween Luzon  and  Formosa,  made  Lintin  Island,  ran  a 
gantlet  of  piratical  junks,  paused  at  the  old  Portuguese 
factory  of  Macao,  and  sailed  up-river  past  the  Bogue 
forts  to  Whampoa,  the  anchorage  for  all  foreign  mer- 
chantmen. There  the  Hoppo  came  aboard  to  receive 
gifts  for  wife,  mother,  and  self,  and  measure  the  ship 
for  her  'cumshaw-duty.'  Thence  her  cargo  was  light- 
ered in  chop-boats  twelve  miles  upstream  to  Canton, 
landed  at  Jackass  Point,  and  stored  in  a  factory  or 
hong  hired  from  one  of  the  twelve  Chinese  security 
merchants,  who  had  a  monopoly  of  foreign  trade,  and 
acted  as  commercial  godfathers  to  the  Fan-Kwae,  or 
foreign  devils. 

To  Yankee  seamen,  fresh  from  the  savage  wilderness 
of  the  Northwest,  how  marvelous,  bewildering  was  old 
Canton !  Against  a  background  of  terraced  hongs  with 
their  great  go-downs  or  warehouses,  which  screened 
the  forbidden  City  of  Rams  from  foreign  devils'  gaze, 
flowed  the  river,  bearing  a  city  of  boats  the  like  of 

64 


THE  HONGS  OF  OLD  CANTON 


THE  PAGODA  ANCHORAGE,  WHAMPOA 


THE  CANTON  MARKET 

which  he  had  never  dreamed.  Moored  to  the  shore 
were  flower-boats,  their  upper  works  cunningly  carved 
into  the  shape  of  flowers  and  birds,  and  strange  sounds 
issuing  from  their  painted  windows.  Mandarin  boats 
decorated  with  gay  silk  pennants,  and  propelled  by 
double  banks  of  oars,  moved  up  and  down  in  stately 
cadence.  Great  tea-deckers,  with  brightly  lacquered 
topsides  and  square  sail  of  brown  matting,  brought 
the  Souchong,  Young  Hyson,  and  Bohea  from  up- 
river.  In  and  out  darted  thousands  of  little  sampans, 
housing  entire  families  who  plied  their  humble  trades 
afloat.  Provision  dealers  cried  their  wares  from  boats 
heaped  high  with  colorful  and  deadly  produce.  Bar- 
bers' skiffs  announced  their  coming  by  the  twanging 
of  tweezers,  emblem  of  their  skippers'  painful  profes- 
sion. Twilight  brought  the  boat  people  to  their  moor- 
ings, a  bamboo  pole  thrust  in  oozy  bottom,  and  paper 
lanterns  diffused  a  soft  light  over  the  river.  For  color 
and  exotic  flavor  there  was  no  trade  like  the  old  China 
trade,  no  port  like  Canton. 

Boston  traders,  in  contrast  to  the  arrogant  officials 
of  Honourable  John,  were  welcomed  by  the  Chinese; 
and  on  their  part  acquired  an  esteem  for  the  Chinese 
character  that  has  endured  to  this  day.  Russell  Sturgis, 
who  traveled  and  resided  in  many  lands,  said  that  he 
never  knew  better  gentlemen  than  the  Hong  merchants. 
Houqua's  name  was  a  household  word  in  Boston  mer- 
chants' families.  They  never  tired  of  describing  old 
Houqua  tearing  up  the  $72,000  promissory  note  of  a 
homesick  Bostonian,  with  the  remark,  "You  and  I  olo 
flen;  you  belong  honest  man  only  no  got  chance.  .  . . 
Just  now  have  setlee  counter,  alia  finishee;  you  go,  you 
please."  But  trade  did  not  always  go  on  in  this  princely 
manner.  The  Chinese  were  able  to  instruct  even 
Bostonians  in  the  pleasant  art  of  smuggling.  There 

65 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

was  much  clandestine  trade  in  otter-skins  from  Yankee 
ships  in  Macao  Roads,  or  the  near-by  Dirty  Butter 
Bay;  good  training  for  opium-running  at  a  later  period. 

The  strange  laws  and  customs  of  the  Chinese  led  to 
the  creation  of  Boston  mercantile  agencies  at  Canton 
in  order  to  ease  the  way  for  American  traders.  Major 
Shaw  established  the  first,  Shaw  &  Randall,  on  his 
return  to  Canton  as  American  consul  in  1786.  The 
Columbia's  cargo  was  handled  by  him,  and  a  commis- 
sion of  seven  and  one-half  per  cent  charged  on  the  re- 
turn lading.  Competition  later  reduced  this  to  two  and 
one-half  per  cent,  of  which  one  was  returned  to  the  su- 
percargo. The  most  famous  house  of  our  period  was 
Perkins  &  Co.,  a  branch  of  J.  &  T.  H.  Perkins,  of  Bos- 
ton. Established  in  1803,  the  illness  of  the  chief  put 
this  concern  under  the  charge  of  his  sixteen-year-old 
clerk,  John  Perkins  Gushing.  The  young  man's  letters 
were  so  precocious  that  his  uncles  made  him  permanent 
head  man,  and  took  him  into  partnership.  Except  for 
two  brief  visits  home,  Gushing  remained  at  Canton 
thirty  years,  and  became  the  most  wealthy  and  highly 
respected  foreign  merchant  in  China. 

What  with  the  commissions,  duties,  presents,  and 
graft  that  must  be  yielded  at  every  step  to  hoppo, 
comprador,  or  linguist,  the  cost  of  doing  business  at 
Canton  was  very  heavy.  The  Columbia's  first  lading, 
of  one  thousand  and  fifty  sea-otter  skins,  sold  for 
$21,404.71;  but  after  fees,  expenses,  and  repairs  were 
deducted,  only  $11,241.51  remained  to  invest  in  a 
homeward  cargo.  Even  after  the  ropes  were  learned,  it 
was  a  clever  captain  who  expended  less  than  six  thou- 
sand dollars  at  Canton.  Yet  the  American  demand  for 
tea,  nankeens,  crapes,  and  silks  increased  so  fast,  and 
Boston  merchant-shipowners  proved  so  efficient  in  the 
cheap  handling  and  distribution  of  China  goods  to  all 

66 


THE  CANTON  MARKET 

parts  of  the  world,  that  the  trade  grew  by  leaps  and 
bounds.  The  value  of  imports  at  Canton  on  American 
vessels  rose  to  over  five  million  dollars  in  1805-06;  of 
this  over  one  million  was  accounted  for  by  17,445  sea- 
otter,  140,297  seal,  and  34,460  beaver-skins,  and  1600 
piculs  of  sandalwood.  Most  of  the  remainder  was  spe- 
cie brought  directly  from  Boston,  New  York,  and  Phil- 
adelphia. The  same  year  American  vessels  exported 
almost  ten  million  pounds  of  tea  from  Canton.  It 
was  a  constant  marvel  to  Europeans,  who  conducted 
the  China  trade  in  great  ships  owned  by  chartered 
monopolies,  how  the  Americans  managed  to  survive 
these  heavy  charges  with  their  small,  individually 
owned  vessels.  Yet  the  American,  and  particularly 
the  Boston  way  of  China  trading  was  the  more  econom- 
ical. Free  competition,  and  elimination  of  pomp  and 
circumstance,  more  than  made  up  for  the  small  craft's 
disadvantage  in  'overhead.' 

When  the  winter  season  brought  favoring  winds, 
the  ships  quickly  completed  their  lading,  obtained  the 
Grand  Chop  that  passed  them  down-river,  and  caught 
the  northeast  monsoon  down  the  China  Sea.  Off  the 
coast  of  Borneo  began  several  hundred  miles  of  danger- 
ous waters:  shoals,  reefs,  and  fantastic  islands,  baffling 
winds  and  treacherous  currents,  among  which  one  had 
the  feeling  that  Conrad  describes,  of  being  constantly 
watched.  Let  a  vessel  but  touch  on  submerged  reef, 
and  hundreds  of  Malay  proas  come  swarming  to  take 
her  life's  blood.  Through  Caspar  Passage  or  Banka 
Straits  the  vessel  reached  a  welcome  stretch  of  open 
water,  and  before  long  the  sight  of  Java  Head.  A 
stop  for  fresh  provisions  was  made  off  the  village  of 
Anjer,  where  Java  "rose  from  level  groves  of  shore 
palms  to  lofty  blue  peaks  terraced  with  rice  and  red- 
massed  kina  plantations,  with  shining  streams  and 

67 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

green  kananga  flowers  and  tamarinds,  and  the  land 
breeze,  fragrant  with  clove  buds  and  cinnamon,  came 
off  to  the  ship  like  a  vaporous  dusk."  1  There,  the  ship 
was  quickly  surrounded  by  a  swarm  of  canoes  plied 
by  naked  Malays,  and  laden  with  cocoanuts,  oranges, 
mangoes  and  mangosteen;  with  Java  sparrows,  par- 
rots, monkeys,  green  turtles,  and  Malacca-joint  canes. 

From  this  enchanted  spot  the  ship  threaded  the 
Sunda  Straits,  full  of  dangerous  rocks  that  rose  out  of 
seventy-fathom  depths,  toward  which  the  currents  ir- 
resistibly drew  becalmed  vessels.  "Thank  God  we  are 
clear  of  Sunda  Straits,"  confided  a  Boston  shipmaster 
to  his  sea  journal  on  November  19,  1801.  '"T  is  sur- 
prising to  see  the  joy  depicted  on  every  one's  counte- 
nance at  getting  clear  of  these  horrid  straits.  Many 
of  the  sailors  who  had  never  been  off  duty  was  now 
obliged  to  take  to  their  beds.  Many  a  time  they  had 
to  support  themselves  on  a  Gun  while  doing  their 
duty.  Still  they  would  not  give  out  till  we  got  clear. 
Such  men  as  these  deserve  my  best  regards." 

Once  a  vessel  was  clear  of  the  straits,  a  quartering 
southeast  wind  stretched  her  across  the  Indian  Ocean 
to  Madagascar  and  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope.  Simon's 
Town  was  frequently  visited  for  a  little  smuggling. 
Then,  after  a  last  call  at  St.  Helena,  the  China  trader 
squared  away  for  Cape  Cod. 


"There  are  better  ships  nowadays,  but  no  better 
seamen,"  wrote  an  aged  Boston  merchant  in  1860;  and 
his  words  still  hold  good.  Of  these  gallant  Nor'west- 
men,  who  thought  no  more  of  rounding  the  Horn  than 
their  descendants  do  of  rounding  Cape  Cod,  Captain 

1  Hergesheimer,  Java  Head. 

68 


THE  CANTON  MARKET 

'Bill'  Sturgis  was  one  of  the  best.  A  tough,  beetly- 
browed  son  of  a  Cape  Cod  shipmaster,  he  left  Boston 
for  the  Coast  in  1798  as  sixteen-year-old  foremast  hand 
on  the  ship  Eliza,  belonging  to  T.  H.  Perkins,  his 
young  but  wealthy  relative.  He  returned  to  Boston 
five  years  later  as  master  of  the  Lambs'  ship  Caroline, 
and  of  the  fur  trade.  On  his  third  voyage,  in  command 
of  Theodore  Lyman's  new  ship  Atahualpa  with  $300,- 
ooo  in  specie  on  board,  he  beat  off  an  attack  of  sixteen 
pirate  junks  in  Macao  Roads.  Returning,  he  formed 
with  John  Bryant,  of  Boston,  the  firm  of  Bryant  & 
Sturgis,  which  after  the  War  of  1812  revived  the  North- 
west fur  trade,  and  opened  the  hide  traffic  with  Cali- 
fornia. 

William  Sturgis  became  one  of  the  wealthiest  mer- 
chants of  Boston,  and  lived  to  hear  the  news  of  Gettys- 
burg; but  no  one  dared  call  him  a  merchant  prince. 
Owing  perhaps  to  the  caricature  of  leisure-class  display 
he  had  seen  among  the  Northwest  Indians,  Captain 
Sturgis  refused  to  surround  himself  with  paintings, 
bric-a-brac,  and  useless  furniture.  Throughout  the 
worst  period  of  interior  decoration,  his  simple  mansion 
on  Church  Green  remained  as  neat  and  bare  as  a  ship's 
cabin.  When  he  occupied  a  Boston  seat  in  the  Great 
and  General  Court,  one  of  the  professional  orators  of 
that  body  got  off  a  long  Greek  quotation.  Captain 
Bill  replied  in  one  of  the  Indian  dialects  of  the  North- 
west Coast,  which,  he  explained,  was  much  more  to  the 
point,  and  probably  as  well  understood  by  his  col- 
leagues, as  that  of  the  honorable  and  learned  gentle- 
man. Public-spirited  without  self-advertisement,  writ- 
ing and  lecturing  with  salty  emphasis  on  the  Oregon 
country,  an  honored  member  of  learned  societies,  yet 
proud  that  he  came  in  through  the  hawse-hole;  Wil- 
liam Sturgis  was  the  finest  type  of  Boston  merchant 

69 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

created  by  these  far-flung  adventures  of  Federalist 
days. 

Another  famous  Nor'westman,  who  had  neither  the 
background  nor  the  connections  of  William  Sturgis, 
was  Captain  John  Suter.  Born  of  Scots  parents  near 
Norfolk,  Virginia,  in  1781,  left  a  penniless  orphan  at 
the  age  of  eight,  he  made  his  way  to  Boston  on  a 
schooner.  The  child  was  befriended  by  a  Boston  pilot, 
who  taught  him  to  hand,  reef  and  steer,  to  read  his 
Bible,  and  to  live  straight.  At  seventeen  he  began  his 
deep-sea  voyages.  The  next  two  years  brought  ad- 
ventures enough  to  have  dampened  any  one's  ardor 
for  seafaring;  privateering  against  France,  capture,  and 
a  Brest  dungeon;  a  West- India  voyage,  impressment 
into  a  British  frigate,  an  attack  of  smallpox,  and  one  of 
'  yellow  jack/  Yet  no  sooner  was  the  boy  back  in  Bos- 
ton than  he  shipped  as  foremast  hand  on  the  ship  Alert 
outward  bound  to  the  Northwest  Coast  and  Canton. 

Without  education,  family,  or  anything  but  his  own 
merits  to  recommend  him,  John  Suter  did  so  well  on  his 
first  Northwest  voyage  that  on  his  second,  in  1804, 
he  sailed  as  mate  and  "assistant  trader"  on  the  ship 
Pearl.  On  her  return,  he  was  promoted  to  master  and 
supercargo,  and  made  a  most  successful  voyage  to  the 
Coast  and  Canton.  The  value  of  ship,  outfit,  and  cargo, 
judging  from  statistics  of  other  voyages,  could  not 
have  exceeded  forty  thousand  dollars.1  In  spite  of 
some  unpleasantness  with  the  Indians  —  who  once  had 
to  be  cleared  from  the  Pearl's  decks  by  cross-fire  from 
the  loopholes  —  Captain  Suter  collected  enough  furs 

1  The  cargoes  of  twelve  vessels  which  cleared  from  Boston  for  the 
Northwest  Coast  between  1797  and  1800  were  invoiced  between  $7500 
and  $19,700.  (Solid  Men  of  Boston,  76.)  The  Caroline  in  1803  asked  only 
$14,000  and  obtained  but  $13,000  insurance  for  ship,  cargo,  and  outfit. 
The  rate  was  seventeen  per  cent,  covering  risk  "against  the  Natives  and 
as  well  on  shore  as  on  board." 

70 


and  sandalwood  to  pay  all  expenses  at  Canton,  and 
lay  out  $156,743.21  in  goods.  His  return  cargo  is  so 
typical  of  that  trade  and  period,  that  I  give  it  in  detail, 
from  the  Captain's  own  manuscript  memoranda,  with 
the  prices  realized  at  auction  sale  in  Boston. 

SALES  OF  SHIP  PEARL'S  CARGO  AT  BOSTON,  1810 

50  blue  and  white  dining  sets,  172  pieces  each. ...  $  2  290.00 

480  tea  sets,  49  pieces  each 2  704.80 

30  boxes  enameled  cups  and  sauces,  50  dozen  each       I  360.00 

100  boxes  Superior  Souchong  tea 795-87 

100  chests  Souchong 3  834.66 

235      "      Hyson 13  290.65 

160  Hyson  Skin 5  577.40 

400      "      other  teas 13  668.48 

200  chests  Cassia  of  2208  "matts"  each 8  585.52 

170  ooo  pieces  ' Nankins' 1 18  850.00 

14  ooo     "     (280  bales)  blue  do 24  195.00 

5  ooo     "     (50       "     )  yellow  do 6  800.00 

2  ooo    "     (50      "     )  white  do 2  580.00 

24  bottles  oil  of  Cassia 466.65 

92  cases  silks  (black  'sinchaws,'  black  '  sattins,' 
white  and  blue  striped  do.  dark  brown  plains, 
bottle-green  and  black  striped  'sattins  for 

Gentlemens  ware" 56  344.61 

And  sundries,  bring  the  total  to 261  343.18 

Expenses  of  sale,  including  auctioneer's  commission, 
wharfage,  truckage,  "advertising  in  Centinel  and 
Gazette,  5.50,"  "advertising  and  crying  of  sales,  30.31," 

"liquors,  5.88" 2  129.06 

Captain  Suter's  'primage,'  5%  on  balance 12  960.70 

Balance  to  owners 246  253.42 

On  this  were  paid  customs  duties,  within  12  months. . .  39  602.95 
Net  profit  on  voyage 206  650.47 

Having  proved  himself  both  a  keen  trader  and  an 
able  master,  Captain  Suter  was  offered  by  George 

71 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

Lyman  a  'primage'  of  ten  per  cent,  with  the  usual 
'  privilege '  and  salary,  to  succeed  Captain  Sturgis  on 
the  Atahualpa.  He  accepted,  and  took  a  sixteenth 
share  in  ship  and  cargo  as  well. 

Owing  to  his  ruthless  repulse  of  a  band  of  Indians 
who  had  boarded  the  Pearl,  Captain  Suter  returned 
to  the  Coast  a  marked  man.  One  day  an  Indian  chief 
came  on  board,  ostensibly  to  trade.  Immediately  a 
flotilla  of  dugouts,  containing  over  two  thousand 
warriors,  issued  from  behind  a  wooded  point  and  sur- 
rounded the  Atahualpa.  They  found  a  worthy  suc- 
cessor to  Captain  Sturgis  on  her  quarterdeck.  Suter 
took  the  chief  by  the  throat,  put  a  pistol  to  his  head, 
and  told  him  to  order  the  canoes  away  or  he  would 
blow  his  brains  out.  The  order  was  given.  Deliber- 
ately weighing  anchor,  Captain  Suter  made  sail,  and 
when  free  of  the  canoes  released  his  prisoner,  who 
turned  out  to  be  the  very  Indian  who  had  successfully 
attacked  John  Jacob  Astor's  Tonquin. 

Owing  to  the  War  of  1812  and  the  presence  of  British 
cruisers  in  the  Pacific,  Captain  Suter  sold  the  Atahu- 
alpa at  Hawaii  at  considerable  sacrifice;  but  he  got 
enough  furs  into  Canton  to  send  home,  after  peace  was 
concluded,  a  cargo  that  netted  the  owners  almost 
$120,000  on  their  original  adventure  of  not  over 
$40,000. 

Would  that  we  could  reproduce  the  language,  ex- 
pressions, and  motions  of  that  extinct  breed,  the  Nor'- 
westman  of  Boston !  Of  John  Suter,  little  survives  but 
bare  facts,  and  one  anecdote.  He  was  more  deeply 
religious  than  most  New  England-born  sea-captains, 
and  read  the  Bible  aloud  daily  on  shipboard.  One 
young  scamp  of  a  supercargo  amused  himself  by  put- 
ting back  the  bookmark  at  the  conclusion  of  every 
day's  reading,  until  the  Captain  remarked  mildly  that 

72 


THE  CANTON  MARKET 

he  seemed  to  be  having  head  winds  through  the  Book 
of  Daniel !  After  a  sixth  and  a  seventh  voyage  around 
the  world,  Captain  Suter  settled  down  in  Boston  to 
the  tranquil  joys  of  home  and  family,  church  and  lodge, 
that  he  had  fairly  won  from  sea  and  savage  barter. 

"Sir,  you'l  please  to  let  my  mama  know  that  I  am 
well,  Mr.  Boit  [the  fifth  mate,  aged  seventeen]  also 
requests  you'l  let  his  parent  know  he  is  in  health." 
This  postscript  to  a  letter  of  John  Hoskins,  clerk  of  the 
Columbia,  to  her  principal  owner,  reminds  us  how 
young  were  the  Yankee  seamen  of  that  period.  It 
seems  that  the  generation  of  Revolutionary  privateers- 
men  was  so  quickly  absorbed  in  our  expanding  mer- 
chant marine  as  to  call  the  youngest  classes  to  the 
colors.  A  famous  youngsters'  voyage  to  Eastern 
waters,  many  times  described,  was  that  of  the  Derby 
ship  Benjamin,  of  Salem,  in  1792-94.  Captain  Na- 
thaniel Silsbee,  later  United  States  Senator  from 
Massachusetts,  was  but  nineteen  when  he  took  com- 
mand of  this  vessel;  yet  he  had  followed  the  sea  for 
five  years,  served  as  Captain  Magee's  clerk  on  the 
Astrea,  and  commanded  two  voyages  to  the  West  In- 
dies. His  first  mate,  Charles  Derby,  was  but  one  year 
older;  his  clerk,  Richard  J.  Cleveland,  but  eighteen. 
The  second  mate,  an  old  salt  of  twenty-four,  proved 
insubordinate  and  was  put  ashore! 

With  a  miscellaneous  cargo,  including  hops,  saddlery, 
window  glass,  mahogany  boards,  tobacco,  and  Madeira 
wine,  these  schoolboys  made  a  most  successful  voyage 
to  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  and  He  de  France,  using 
sound  judgment  as  to  ports,  cargoes,  and  freight, 
amid  embargoes  and  revolutions;  slipping  their  cables 
at  Capetown  after  dark  in  a  gale  of  wind  to  escape  a 
British  frigate;  drifting  out  of  Bourbon  with  the  ebb 
tide  to  elude  a  French  brig-o'-war;  spending  a  few 

73 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

days  fishing,  shooting  wild  goats,  and  catching  turtles 
at  Ascension ;  returning  to  Salem  after  nineteen  months' 
absence,  with  a  cargo  which  brought  almost  five  hun- 
dred per  cent  profit  to  the  owner,  and  enabled  the  young 
master  to  make  a  home  for  his  mother  and  sisters. 

Captain  Silsbee  was  by  no  means  the  youngest  ship- 
master on  record.  James  Rowland,  2d,  of  New  Bed- 
ford, was  given  a  merchant  ship  by  his  father  on  his 
eighteenth  birthday,  and  as  her  captain  went  on  a 
honeymoon  voyage  to  the  Baltic  with  his  still  younger 
bride,  before  the  year  elapsed. 

But  the  most  remarkable  youthful  exploit  in  this 
bright  dawn  of  Pacific  adventure,  that  has  come  to  my 
notice,  is  John  Boit,  Jr.'s  voyage  around  the  world, 
in  the  eighty-nine-ton  sloop  Union,  of  Boston. 

At  the  age  of  nineteen,  on  August  I,  1794,  he  sailed 
from  Newport  as  master  of  this  sixty-foot  craft  and 
her  crew  of  twenty-two,  with  ten  carriage  guns,  eight 
swivels,  and  a  full  cargo  and  outfit  for  the  Northwest 
Coast.  The  voyage  south  was  pleasantly  broken  by 
catching  green  turtles  and  shooting  albatross  —  one 
measuring  sixteen  feet  tip  to  tip ;  by  celebrating  Christ- 
mas Day,  and  stopping  at  St.  lago  and  the  Falklands, 
to  save  the  crew  from  scurvy,  and  to  hunt  wild  hogs. 
The  Union  rounded  the  Horn  safely  in  thick,  blowy 
weather,  reaching  57°  42'  south  latitude  on  February 
4,  1795.  On  May  16,  two  hundred  and  sixty  days  out, 
she  sighted  land,  and  the  next  day  dropped  anchor  in 
"Columbia's  cove,  Bulfinch's  Sound,"  on  Vancouver 
Island.  Here,  young  Boit  tells  us,  he  felt  quite  at 
home.  The  natives  recognized  him,  and  inquired 
after  each  and  every  member  of  the  Columbia's  crew. 
Furs  were  double  the  price  of  1792,  but  trade  was 
brisk,  and  the  sloop  went  as  far  north  as  54°  15'  to 
complete  her  cargo. 

74 


THE  CANTON  MARKET 

On  June  20,  when  lying  at  anchor  in  Puget  Sound, 
the  Union  was  attacked  by  several  hundred  Indians 
under  Chief  Scootch-Eye.  With  husky  savages  swarm- 
ing around  the  sloop  and  over  his  bulwarks,  Captain 
Boit  and  his  crew  kept  their  nerve,  and  without  a  sin- 
gle casualty  to  themselves  killed  the  chief  and  forty  of 
his  warriors.  When  they  got  under  weigh,  and  stood 
in  toward  the  nearest  village,  the  Indians  came  out 
trembling,  waving  green  boughs  and  offering  otter- 
skins  in  propitiation. 

After  a  fruitless  attempt  to  cross  the  bar  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Columbia  River,  the  Union  went  north 
again  to  Queen  Charlotte's  Island,  and  left  the  Coast 
for  Canton  on  September  12,  1795.  One  month  later, 
Captain  Boit  sighted  "Owhyhee,"  at  a  distance  of 
thirty  leagues.  The  next  day,  sailing  alongshore,  the 
sloop  was  visited  by  native  canoes  bringing  hogs  and 
pineapples,  and  "the  females  were  quite  amorous" 
On  December  5,  the  sloop  joined  seven  larger  American 
vessels  at  Whampoa.  After  exchanging  his  sea-otter 
for  silk  and  nankeens,  and  taking  freight  and  passen- 
gers for  the  lie  de  France,  he  got  under  weigh  in  com- 
pany with  the  American  fleet  on  January  12,  1796. 
It  was  a  two  months'  sail  through  the  China  Sea,  the 
Straits  of  Sunda,  and  the  Indian  Ocean  to  Mauritius. 
Completing  his  cargo  there  with  coffee  and  pepper, 
Captain  Boit  began  the  last  leg  of  his  voyage  at  the 
end  of  March,  1796.  After  passing  the  Island  of  Mada- 
gascar, he  found  the  sloop's  mast  sprung,  and  had  to 
fish  it  and  apply  preventer  backstays  while  under 
weigh.  Then  came  a  four  days'  westerly  gale,  which 
stove  in  part  of  the  Union's  bulwarks,  and  swept  the 
hen-coops  off  her  deck,  as  she  lay  to.  Early  in  May  she 
rounded  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  and  caught  the 
southeast  trades.  Off  Georges  Bank,  she  was  brought 

75 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

to  by  the  French  sloop-of-war  Scipio,  but  allowed  to 
pass  "with  the  utmost  politeness."  Near  Boston  Har- 
bor the  British  frigate  Reason  fired  a  shot  through  the 
Union's  staysail,  and  forced  the  young  master  to  come 
aboard  with  his  papers,  but  "finding  they  could  not 
make  a  prize  of  the  sloop,  suffer'd  me  to  pass,  after 
treating  me  in  a  rough  and  ungentlemanlike  manner." 
At  last,  on  July  8,  came  the  welcome  gleam  of  Boston 
Light.  Castle  William,  as  seafaring  men  still  called 
Fort  Independence,  saluted  the  returning  sloop  with 
fifteen  guns,  which  she  returned.  Anchoring  in  the 
inner  harbor,  she  saluted  the  town,  and  got  "three 
huzzas  of  welcome"  from  the  wharves.  The  Union 
made  a  "saving  voyage,"  beat  most  of  the  fleet  home, 
and  was  the  first,  possibly  the  only,  sloop-rigged  vessel 
ever  to  circumnavigate  the  globe. 

In  view  of  the  newspaper  publicity  given  nowadays 
to  men  of  twice  Boit's  age  and  experience  for  cross- 
ing the  Atlantic  in  vessels  no  smaller  than  the  Union 
and  far  better  equipped,  it  is  refreshing  to  note  the 
scant  attention  he  got.  "Sloop  Union,  Boit,  Canton," 
in  small  type  at  the  end  of  'Arrivals'  in  the  "Boston 
Centinel."  That  was  all ! l 


Many  a  Boston  family  owes  its  rise  to  fame  and 
fortune  to  the  old  Nor'west  and  China  trade ;  and  not 
a  few  of  them  were  founded  by  masters  who  came 
in  through  the  hawse-hole,  like  Sturgis  and  Suter. 
Emoluments  were  much  higher  than  on  any  other  trade 
route.  Masters  and  mates  received  only  twenty  to 
twenty-five  dollars  monthly  wages;  but  each  officer 

1  Another  Boston  paper  reports  his  experience  with  the  men-of-war, 
but  makes  no  comment  on  his  voyages. 

76 


THE  CANTON  MARKET 

had  the  'privilege'  of  one-half  to  five  tons  (twenty  to 
two  hundred  cubic  feet)  cargo  space  on  the  homeward 
passage  for  his  private  adventures  in  China  goods; 
beside  'primage,'  a  commission  of  from  one  to  eight 
per  cent1  on  the  net  proceeds  of  the  voyage.  It  was 
only  prudent  for  owners  to  be  generous  with  their 
ships'  officers,  on  a  route  where  the  opportunities  for 
private  trading  and  fixing  accounts  were  so  great. 
Even  with  half  the  luck  of  John  Suter,  a  master  could 
clear  twenty-five  hundred  dollars  a  year,  and  pyramid 
his  profits  by  taking  a  share  in  the  next  voyage  he 
commanded. 

These  wages  and  allowances  were  sufficient  to  at- 
tract the  best  type  of  New  Englander.  Nor'westmen's 
officers  were  almost  exclusively  native-born  or  adopted 
Yankees,  and  the  men  recruited  largely  from  Cape 
Cod,  Boston,  and  '  down  East.'  But  every  forecastle 
contained  a  few  foreigners.2 

No  Richard  Dana  has  told  the  story  of  the  Nor'- 
westmen  from  the  foremast  angle.  Unless  the  rec- 
ords of  our  admiralty  courts  yield  something,  the 
common  seaman's  side  is  lost.  Certain  it  is,  that  the 
Northwest  fur  trade,  until  it  existed  no  more,  enjoyed 
a  greater  prestige  and  popularity  among  New  England 
seamen  than  any  other  route.3  Mutinies  occurred,  but 

1  Suter's  primage  of  ten  per  cent  on  the  Atahualpa  was  exceptional. 
On  his  next  voyage,  in  the  Mentor,  he  received  but  seven  and  one-half. 
The  Mentor's  chief  mate  had  twenty  dollars  wages,  one  per  cent  on  net 
sales  at  Canton,  and  two  and  one-half  tons  '  privilege'  home. 

1  See  chapter  vm. 

1  Dana  tells  a  good  story  illustrating  this,  in  his  Two  Years  Before 
the  Mast.  On  her  homeward  voyage  from  the  California  coast,  with  a 
cargo  of  hides,  the  Alert  spoke  a  Plymouth  brig,  and  sent  a  boat  aboard 
to  procure  fresh  provisions.  Her  Yankee  mate  leaned  over  the  rail,  and 
asked  where  they  were  from.  "From  the  Nor'west  Coast !"  said  sailor 
Joe,  wishing  to  gain  glory  in  the  eyes  of  this  humble  West-India  trader. 
"What's  your  cargo?"  came  next.  "Skins!"  said  Joe.  "Here  and  there 
a  horn?"  said  the  mate  dryly,  and  every  one  laughed. 

77 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

mutinies  prove  little.  One  that  Captain  Suter  sup- 
pressed in  Honolulu  Harbor,  with  his  strong  right  arm 
and  cutlass,  was  caused  by  gambling  among  the  crew. 
Many  deserted  in  the  Sandwich  Islands,  but  who  would 
not?  Rumors  have  come  down  of  unscrupulous  own- 
ers, who  in  order  to  save  money  abandoned  men  on 
the  Northwest  Coast  and  substituted  Kanakas.  Cap- 
tain James  Magee  brought  the  first  Chinaman  to  the 
United  States,  but  he  was  a  student,  not  a  sailor.  And 
few  such  made  the  voyage  twice.  As  "China  Jack" 
(the  favorite  Whampoa  factotum  for  American  ves- 
sels) remarked  after  essaying  a  round  trip  to  Boston, 
"Too  muchee  strong  gale,  sea  allsame  high  mast  head 
—  no  can  see  sky!" 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  SALEM  EAST  INDIES 
1790-1812 

THE  most  formidable  rival  to  Boston  in  the  contest  for 
Oriental  wealth  lay  but  sixteen  miles  "to  the  east'd," 
as  we  say  on  the  Massachusetts  coast  when  we  mean 
north.  Salem,  with  a  little  under  eight  thousand  in- 
habitants, was  the  sixth  city  in  the  United  States  in 
I79O.1  Her  appearance  was  more  antique  even  than 
that  of  Boston,  and  her  reek  of  the  salt  water,  that 
almost  surrounded  her,  yet  more  pronounced.  For  half 
a  mile  along  the  harbor  front,  subtended  by  the  long 
finger  of  Derby  Wharf,  ran  Derby  Street,  the  residen- 
tial and  business  center  of  the  town.  On  one  side  were 
the  houses  of  the  gentry,  Derbys  and  Princes  and 
Crowninshields,  goodly  gambrel  or  hip-roofed  brick 
and  wooden  mansions  dating  from  the  middle  of  the 
century,  standing  well  back  with  tidy  gardens  in  front. 
Opposite  were  the  wharves,  separated  from  the  street 
by  counting-rooms,  warehouses,  ship-chandlers'  stores, 
pump-makers'  shops,  sailmakers'  lofts;  all  against  a 
background  of  spars,  rigging,  and  furled  or  brailed-up 
sails.  Crowded  within  three  hundred  yards  of  Derby 
Street,  peeping  between  the  merchants'  mansions  and 
over  their  garden  walls  like  small  boys  behind  a  po- 
lice cordon,  were  some  eighteen  or  nineteen  hundred 
wooden  buildings,  including  dwellings  of  pre-witch- 
craft  days,  with  overhanging  upper  stories,  peaked 
gables,  small-paned  windows,  and  hand-rifted  clap- 
boards black  with  age. 

1  Not  including  Beverly,  which  with  three  thousand,  three  hundred 
inhabitants  in  1790,  was  combined  with  Salem  as  a  port  of  entry  in  1789. 

79 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

A  few  steps  from  the  merchant's  mansion  lies  his 
counting-room  and  wharf,  where  his  favorite  vessel  is 
loading  Russia  duck,  West-India  sugar,  New-England 
rum  and  French  brandy  for  anywhere  beyond  the 
Cape  of  Good  Hope;  to  return  with  goodness  knows 
what  produce  of  Asia,  Africa,  and  the  Malay  Archipel- 
ago, which  you  may  then  purchase  at  wholesale  or 
retail  from  the  selfsame  wharf.  From  his  front  chamber 
the  merchant  may  watch  the  progress  of  his  new  vessel 
in  the  near-by  shipyard ;  but  unless  he  be  a  privileged 
character  like '  King'  Derby,  with  "  an  intuitive  faculty 
in  judging  of  models  and  proportions,"  he  had  best  not 
interfere.  Shipbuilding,  an  ancient  industry  in  Salem, 
is  now  growing  fast ;  the  China  voyages  of  the  Grand 
Turk  and  Astrea  produced  such  a  demand  for  new  ton- 
nage that  Enos  Briggs,  a  master  builder  of  Pembroke 
in  the  Old  Colony,  has  come  to  Salem,  and  at  the  head 
of  Derby  Wharf  is  constructing  a  new  Grand  Turk  of 
five  hundred  and  sixty  tons,  for  which  the  new  duck 
manufactory  is  weaving  sailcloth.  Next  year  he  shall 
astonish  the  natives  by  launching  a  vessel  sideways 
from  the  wharf;  all  Salem,  summoned  by  town  crier, 
helping  or  cheering.  Ebenezer  Mann,  another  North- 
Riverite,  has  the  barque  Good  Intent  on  the  stocks  for 
Simon  Forrester;  and  a  vessel  is  rising  on  every  slip  of 
the  ancient  yard  where  Retire  Becket  carries  on  the 
business  of  his  ancestors. 

A  Salem  boy  in  those  days  was  born  to  the  music  of 
windlass  chanty  and  caulker's  maul ;  he  drew  in  a  taste 
for  the  sea  with  his  mother's  milk;  wharves  and  ship- 
yards were  his  playground;  he  shipped  as  boy  on  a 
coaster  in  his  early  teens,  saw  Demerara  and  St. 
Petersburg  before  he  set  foot  in  Boston,  and  if  he  had 
the  right  stuff  in  him,  commanded  an  East-Indiaman 
before  he  was  twenty-five. 

80 


THE  SALEM  EAST  INDIES 

Whenever  a  Salem  lad  could  tear  himself  away  from 
the  wharves,  he  would  go  barefoot  to  Juniper  Point 
or  pull  a  skiff  to  Winter  Island,  and  scan  the  bay  for 
approaching  sail.  Marblehead  was  a  better  vantage- 
point  ;  but  it  was  a  lion-hearted  Salem  boy  indeed  who 
dared  venture  within  the  territorial  waters  of  Marble- 
head  in  those  days!  The  appearance  of  a  coaster  or 
fisherman  or  West-India  trader  caused  no  special 
emotion;  but  if  the  stately  form  of  an  East-Indiaman 
came  in  view,  then  't  was  race  back  to  Derby  Wharf, 
and  earn  a  silver  Spanish  dollar  for  good  news.  The 
word  speeds  rapidly  through  the  town,  which  begins  to 
swarm  like  an  ant-hill ;  counting-room  clerks  rush  out  to 
engage  men  for  unloading,  sailors'  taverns  and  board- 
ing-houses prepare  for  a  brisk  run  of  trade,  parrots 
scream  and  monkeys  jabber,  and  every  master  of  his 
own  time  makes  for  cap-sill,  roof- tree,  or  other  vantage- 
point. 

Let  us  follow  one  of  the  privileged,  an  old-time 
provincial  magnate  now  in  the  East-India  trade,  as 
with  powdered  wig,  cocked  hat,  and  scarlet  cloak, 
attended  by  Pompey  or  Cuff  with  the  precious  tele- 
scope, he  puffs  up  garret  ladder  to  captain's  walk. 
What  a  panorama!  To  the  east  stretches  the  noble 
North  Shore,  Cape  Ann  fading  in  the  distance.  No 
sail  in  that  direction,  save  a  fisherman  beating  inside 
Baker's.  Across  the  harbor,  obscuring  the  southerly 
channel,  Marblehead  presents  her  back  side  of  rocky 
pasture  to  the  world  at  large,  and  Salem  in  particular. 
Wind  is  due  south,  tide  half  flood  and  the  afternoon 
waning,  so  if  the  master  be  a  Salem  boy  he  will  bring 
his  ship  around  Peach's  Point,  inside  Kettle  Bottom, 
Endeavors,  Triangles,  and  the  Aqua  Vitaes.  We  adjust 
the  glass  to  the  outer  point  where  she  must  first  appear, 
and  wait  impatiently.  A  flash  of  white  as  the  sun 

81 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

catches  foretopgallant  sails  over  Naugus  Head;  then 
the  entire  ship  bursts  into  view,  bowling  along  at  a  good 
eight  knots.  Her  ensign 's  apeak,  so  all  aboard  are  well. 
A  puff  of  smoke  bursts  from  her  starboard  bow,  and 
then  another,  as  the  first  crack  of  a  federal  salute 
strikes  the  ear.  Fort  William  replies  in  kind,  and  all 
Salem  with  a  roar  of  cheering.  Every  one  recognizes 
the  smart  East-Indiaman  that  dropped  down-harbor 
thirty  months  ago. 

"Is  the  front  chamber  prepared  for  Captain  Rich- 
ard?" asks  our  elderly  merchant,  as  he  descends  to 
greet  his  son  —  just  in  time,  for  the  ship,  hauling  close 
to  the  wind,  is  making  for  Derby  Wharf.  Within  ten 
minutes  she  has  made  a  running  moor,  brailed  up  her 
sails,  and  warped  into  the  best  berth.  The  crowd  parts 
deferentially  as  master  and  supercargo  stalk  ashore, 
gapes  at  a  turbaned  Oriental  who  shipped  as  cabin 
boy,  exchanges  good-natured  if  somewhat  Rabelaisian 
banter  with  officers  and  crew,  and  waits  to  see  the 
mysterious  matting-covered  bales,  shouldered  out  of 
the  vessel's  hold. 

To  conclude  this  picture  of  Salem  at  the  dawn  of  her 
period  of  greatest  prosperity,  read  this  abstract  of  the 
entries  and  customs  duties  during  a  period  of  twenty 
days,  from  May  31  to  June  18,  1790,  as  I  found  them 
in  the  old  custom  house  on  Derby  Street ;  and  remem- 
ber that  these  are  foreign  entries  only,  not  including 
the  fishermen,  and  the  coasters  that  distributed  Salem's 
winnings  to  a  hundred  American  ports. 

May  31.  Brig  William  6"  Henry,  B.  Hodges  master, 
from  Canton.  Tea,  coffee,  silks,  spices  and  nankeens  for 
Gray  &  Orne,  Benj.  Hodges,  George  Dodge,  Jno.  Apple- 
ton,  Samuel  Hewes  Jr.,  Simon  Elliot,  Robt.  Wyer,  Mark 
Haskoll £9,783.81 

June  2.   Schooner  Betsy,  William  Wooldridge  master, 

82 


'    </f«',/r'r  ,rf/,f  i)af«in  Vunriht  C 

/„/<///,  at ,/«-,  */j££~r»e.  f,,,-,,,  ',„„/,,  ',,,  /..,  •„/* 


SALEM  MARINE  SOCIETY  CERTIFICATE  OF  MEMBERSHIP 
Above  is  a  view  of  Salem  Harbor  from  South  Salem.    Derby  and  Crowninshield 
wharves  are  shown  on  the  left;  Baker  Island  and  Naugus  Head  in  right  back- 
ground.  The  small  engravings  on  the  left  show  men  heading  a  barrel  of  dried  fish, 
and  a  vessel  hove  down,  having  her  seams  payed  with  tar 


THE  SALEM  EAST  INDIES 

from  Cadiz.  Lemons,  feathers,  raisins,  oil  and  salt  for 

William  Gray 1 14.30 

June  3.  Schooner  Active,  Seward  Lee  master,  from 
Lisbon.  Wine,  salt,  lemons,  and  feathers  for  William  Gray  17147 

June  5.  Schooner  Lark,  Saml.  Foster  master,  from 
Cadiz.  Salt,  Lemons,  figs,  &c.  for  Brown  &  Thorndike. .  .  .  354O 

June  5.  Schooner  Bee,  Hezekiah  Wallace  master,  from 
Lisbon.  Wine,  salt  and  feathers  for  William  Gray 166.92 

June  5.  Ship  Astrea,  James  Magee  master,  from  Can- 
ton. Tea,  silks,  China  ware,  nankeens  and  other  mer- 
chandise for  O.  Brewster,  J.  Powers,  Wm.  Cabot,  Webb 
&  Brown,  E.  Verry,  A.  Jacobs,  David  Barber,  B.  Pick- 
man,  J.  McGregore,  G.  Dodge,  E.  H.  Derby,  S.  Parkman, 

D.  Sears,  E.  Johnson,  N.  West,  J.  Gardner  Jr.,  T.  H. 
Perkins,  Jno.  Derby  Jr.,  Webb  &  Bray,  Magee  &  Perkins, 

J.  Magee,  T.  H.  Perkins  &  Co.,  J.  Magee  &  Co 27,109.18 

June  II.  Schooner  Experiment,  Joseph  Teel  master, 
from  St.  Eustatia.  Sugar,  rum,  gin  and  salt  for  R.  Beck- 
ett &  J.  Teel 123.64 

June  II.  Brig  Three  Brothers,  John  Collins  master, 
from  the  West  Indies.  Sugar,  rum,  iron  and  salt  for  John 
Collins 207.82 

June  12.  Schooner  Nancy,  Sam.  Mclntire  master, 
from  the  Isle  of  May.1  Salt  for  Samuel  Page 96.12 

June  14.  Schooner  Hanah,  Rich.  Ober  master,  from 
Lisbon.  Salt,  wine,  and  lemons  for  Hill  &  Ober 55-23 

June  15.  Ship  Light  Horse,  Ichabod  Nichols  master, 
from  Canton.  Tea,  silks  and  China  ware  for  E.  H.  Derby, 
Hy.  Elkins,  J.  Crowninshield,  I.  Nichols,  Jno.  Derby  Jr., 

E.  Gibaut 16,312.98 

June    17.    .  Schooner   Dolphin,    Thos.    Bowditch   Jr. 

master,  from  Port  au  Prince.  Salt,  sugar,  and  coffee  for 

Norris  &  Burchmore 56.97 

June  17.  Schooner  Sally,  John  Burchmore  master,  from 
Port  au  Prince.  Sugar  and  molasses  for  Jno.  Norris  &  Co.  323.93 

June  1 8.  Schooner  Lydia,  Gabriel  Holman  master, 
from  Aux  Cayes.  Molasses  for  Sprague  &  Holman 70.43 

June  18.  Schooner  Sukey  &  Betsey..  Thos.  Bowditch 
master,  from  Martinico.  Molasses,  raisins  &  limes,  for 
Saml.  Ingersoll 101.97 

1  Maia,  in  the  Cape  Verde  Islands. 
83 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

June  1 8.  Schooner  John,  Nehemiah  Andrews  master, 
from  St.  Lucia.  Sugar,  coffee,  cocoa  and  molasses  for 
N.  West 297.42 

June  1 8.  Brig  Favorite,  William  Bradshaw  master,  from 
Lisbon.  Salt,  wine,  and  lemons  for  Joshua  Ward  &  Co. .  113.13 

Boston  was  the  Spain,  Salem  the  Portugal,  in  the 
race  for  Oriental  opulence.  Boston  followed  Magellan 
and  the  Columbia  westward,  around  the  Horn;  Salem 
sent  her  vessels  eastward  after  the  Astrea,  around  Af- 
rica, along  the  path  blazed  by  Vasco  da  Gama.  Trace  a 
rough  curve  from  the  Chinese  coast  along  20°  north 
latitude,  pull  it  south  before  reaching  Hawaii,  to  join 
120°  west  longitude  at  the  equator,  and  you  have  a 
rough  line  of  demarcation  between  the  two.  Every- 
thing north  and  east  was  preempted  by  Boston.  Salem 
never  entered  the  Northwest  fur  trade,  and  her  first 
circumnavigator  was  a  humble  sealskinner  in  1802. 
But  to  the  southward  and  westward  of  this  line,  in  the 
Dutch  East  Indies,  Manila,  Mauritius,  both  coasts  of 
Africa,  and  the  smaller  islands  of  the  Pacific,  Salem  had 
the  same  connotation  as  Boston  on  the  Northwest 
Coast;  it  stood  for  the  whole  United  States.  As  late 
as  1833,  Po  Adam,  the  wealthiest  merchant  of  Qual- 
lah  Battoo,  "  believed  Salem  to  be  a  country  by  itself, 
and  one  of  the  richest  and  most  important  sections 
of  the  globe."  Boston  vessels  competed  at  Calcutta; 
Salem  vessels  sometimes  attained  Canton;  the  fleet 
met  off  Java  Head  and  returned  home  together;  but 
for  the  most  part  each  respected  the  other's  territory, 
and  left  little  to  divide  between  Providence,  New  York, 
Philadelphia,  and  Baltimore. 

The  usual  Salem  method  of  making  a  trading  voyage 
was  to  start  off  with  a  mixed  cargo,  assembled  from 
Southern  ports,  the  Baltic,  the  West  Indies,  and  New 
England;  peddle  it  out  at  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope, 

84 


THE  SALEM  EAST  INDIES 

Mauritius,  and  various  ports  in  the  East  Indies;  pick- 
ing up  oddments  here  and  there,  taking  freight  when 
occasion  offered,  buying  bills  of  exchange  on  London  or 
Amsterdam,  and  like  as  not  making  three  or  four  com- 
plete turnovers  before  returning  home.  A  typical  out- 
ward cargo  was  that  of  'King'  Derby's  ship  Henry, 
one  hundred  ninety  tons,  which  cleared  from  Salem  for 
the  He  de  France  (Mauritius)  in  1791.  Pottery  and  ale, 
iron  and  salt  fish,  soap  and  gin,  hams  and  flints,  whale 
oil  and  candles,  saddles  and  bridles,  lard  and  tobacco, 
chocolate  and  flour,  tables  and  desks  made  up  her 
manifest.  Her  twenty-one-year-old  master,  Jacob 
Crowninshield,1  was  one  of  four  brothers,  each  of  whom 
commanded  a  vessel  at  about  the  same  age.  Their 
father,  George  Crowninshield,  had  but  recently  retired 
from  the  sea  at  the  age  of  fifty-five,  and  was  soon  to 
rival  'King'  Derby  as  merchant-shipowner.  Captain 
Jacob  had  a  great  career  before  him;  crowned  by  an 
offer,  thirteen  years  later,  of  the  Navy  Department 
by  President  Jefferson.  Ill  health  from  long  voyages 
in  tropical  waters  obliged  him  to  decline ;  but  the  same 
high  office  was  subsequently  conferred  on  a  younger 
brother  by  President  Madison. 

The  Henry  obtained  most  of  her  return  lading  at 
Mauritius.  But  British  sea  power  gradually  strangled 
this  eastern  emporium  of  France,  and  Salem  vessels 
were  obliged  to  go  to  the  source  of  supplies.  This  led  to 
Massachusetts  men  taking  up  their  residence  in  the 
seaports  of  British  India.  Samuel  Shaw  found  his 
friend  Benjamin  Joy  already  established  at  Calcutta, 
on  his  return  from  China;  and  Thomas  Lechmere,  of 
Salem,  became  an  alderman  of  Bombay. 

In  this  sort  of  commerce,  a  large  discretion  was  left 
to  shipmasters  and  supercargoes.  A  typical  letter  of 

1  Pronounced  '  Grounsell '  at  that  period,  but  now  as  it  is  spelled. 

85 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

instruction  is  one  of  1792  from  William  Gray,  another 
Salem  rival  of  the  Derbys,  to  Captain  William  Ward, 
of  the  brig  Enterprise,  one  hundred  sixty-four  tons.  He 
will  dispose  of  his  Russia  duck,  'coles'  (from  Liver- 
pool), and  anything  that  he  may  think  proper,  at  the 
Cape  of  Good  Hope.  There  he  is  to  pickup  wine,  brandy, 
raisins,  and  almonds  for  the  lie  de  France,  where  the 
whole  cargo  ought  to  sell  for  one  hundred  percent  profit, 
provided  the  Enterprise  arrives  before  a  certain  Boston 
vessel.  Captain  Ward  is  to  purchase  there  anything 
that  will  pay  cent  per  cent  at  Salem,  according  to  a  list 
of  prices  current  furnished  him.  His  next  stop  should 
be  Calcutta  to  take  on  sugar,  saltpeter,  and  "  Bandanno 
silk  Handkerchiefs"  at  the  same  rate.  Otherwise  he 
must  try  to  get  a  'cheep'  cargo  of  teak  to  exchange 
at  Canton  for  China  goods.  He  may  even  sell  the  brig, 
if  a  good  opportunity  offers.  As  Captain  Ward  did  not 
find  prices  low  enough  for  his  owner's  modest  expecta- 
tions, he  took  freight  from  India  to  Ostend,  and  there 
filled  his  hold  with  European  merchandise. 

Until  1811,  when  British  regulations  (surprisingly 
liberal  at  first)  forbade  all  but  direct  voyages  between 
India  and  the  United  States,  the  East-India  trade  was 
susceptible  of  infinite  variety.  Benjamin  Carpenter, 
the  Salem  master  of  the  Boston  ship  Hercules,  wrote  in 
1794  that  profits  might  be  pyramided  indefinitely  by 
freighting  goods  between  Ceylon,  Bombay,  Calcutta, 
and  Madras,  and  by  judicious  turnovers  at  Rangoon, 
Bengal,  and  Coromandel.  That  is,  provided  one  tipped 
heavily,  and  behaved  like  a  gentleman.  "From  the 
Governor  to  the  meanest  citizen,  I  have  made  it  my 
study  to  please.  Let  a  man's  occupation  be  what  it  will, 
you  may  have  occasion  for  his  aid.  I  have  known  a 
present  of  10  s.  to  be  the  means  of  saving  £100.  Good 
language  will  have  the  same  effect,  therefore  exert 

86 


THE  SALEM  EAST  INDIES 

yourself  as  much  as  possible  this  way  and  set  apart 
£20  for  these  purposes." 

During  the  European  war,  Madeira  acquired  an  im- 
portant relation  to  the  East-India  trade.  Salem  and 
Boston  merchants  exchanged  general  cargoes  there 
for  Madeira  wine,  which  found  a  ready  sale  in  Cal- 
cutta. They  also  began  the  pleasant  practice  of  lay- 
ing in  a  few  pipes  l  for  home  consumption,  the  long 
voyage  in  southern  waters  improving  its  flavor.  A 
typical  voyage  was  that  of  the  Maine-built  ship  Her- 
ald, three  hundred  twenty-eight  tons,  commanded 
by  Nathaniel  Silsbee  (formerly  of  the  Benjamin),  and 
owned  by  himself,  Samuel  Parkman,  and  Ebenezer 
Preble.  She  sailed  from  Boston  in  January,  1800,  with 
a  cargo  consisting  of  butter,  beef,  tobacco,  codfish, 
rum,  nankeen  from  China,  two  hundred  thirty-six  pipes 
of  French  brandy  that  had  run  the  British  blockade, 
and  a  large  quantity  of  silver  dollars  and  bills  of  ex- 
change. Most  of  the  provisions,  the  nankeen  and  the 
liquorwere  exchanged  at  Madeira  for  two  hundred  sixty 
pipes  of  "India  market"  wine  and  a  score  of  "choice 
old  London  particular"  for  Boston.  This  genial  cargo 
was  carried  around  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  to  Madras, 
where  the  India  market  wine  was  sold,  and  pepper,  blue 
cloth,  'camboys'  and  'Pulicate'  handkerchiefs  taken 
aboard.  At  Bombay  and  Calcutta,  the  bills  and  specie 
purchased  pepper,  sugar,  ginger,  and  a  bewildering 
array  of  India  cottons,  for  which  the  fashions  of  that 
day,  and  the  absence  of  domestic  competition,  afforded 
an  excellent  market  in  the  United  States.2  The  Herald's 

1  A  pipe  was  a  double  hogshead,  containing  no  to  125  gallons. 

*  In  the  "Beverly  Shipping  Documents,"  I,  at  the  Beverly  Historical 
Society,  is  an  important  letter  of  1796  from  Benjamin  Pickman,  of  Salem, 
to  Israel  Thorndike,  of  Beverly,  advising  him  how  best  to  lay  out  $20,000 
at  Calcutta,  with  samples  of  several  different  cottons  attached.  It  ap- 
pears from  this  that  Beerboom  Gurrahs,  a  stout  white  sheeting,  cost 

87 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

invoice  shows '  Callipatti  Baftas,' '  Beerboom  Gurrahs,' 
'Allabad  Emerties,'  and  a  score  of  different  weaves. 
Madras  chintzes  and  seersuckers  are  the  only,  names 
recognizable  to-day. 

Calcutta,  lying  eighty  miles  up  the  Hoogly  River, 
was  a  port  most  difficult  of  access  before  the  days  of 
tugboats.  After  passing-  the  Sand  Heads  —  a  consid- 
erable feat  of  navigation  in  itself,  at  times  —  it  often 
took  weeks  to  beat  up-river.  The  anchorage  at  Cal- 
cutta was  dangerous  on  account  of  the  tidal  bores,  which 
in  certain  seasons  worked  havoc  with  ground-tackle 
and  shipping.  In  the  southwest  monsoon  season  of 
1799,  writes  William  Cleveland,  of  Salem,  insurance 
from  Calcutta  to  Hamburg  was  sixteen  per  cent;  but 
premiums  would  be  written  for  half  that  rate  from  the 
Sand  Heads  to  Hamburg. 

The  Herald  left  the  Hoogly  in  company  with  three 
vessels  {rom  Philadelphia  and  one  from  Baltimore. 
Outside  competition  was  evidently  becoming  serious. 
It  was  the  period  of  our  naval  hostilities  with  France. 
When  the  Americans  fell  in  with  a  British  East-India- 
man,  under  fire  from  a  French  privateer,  they  decided 
to  bear  a  hand,  and  formed  line-of -battle.  The  master 
of  the  vessel  abreast  the  Herald  expressed  a  keen  desire 
to  leave,  his  speed  being  sufficient  to  elude  the  privateer. 
Captain  Silsbee  roared  through  his  speaking-trumpet, 
"  If  you  do,  I '11  sink  you!"  To  which  his  colleague  re- 
plied, "Damn  you,  Silsbee,  I  know  you  would!";  and 
saw  the  action  through  to  a  successful  finish. 

Small  "private  adventures"  for  the  officers'  and 

about  twelve  cents  a  yard,  white  print  cloth  seven  to  eleven  cents,  and 
"mock  Pulicat  Handkerchiefs,"  eighty-four  to  ninety-five  cents  for 
eight.  William  Tileston,  of  Boston,  known  as  'Count  Indigo,'  did  an 
extensive  business  printing  India  bandannas  at  his  dyehouse  in  the  old 
feather  store,  Dock  Square,  and  at  Staten  Island.  The  duty  saved  by 
importing  plain  goods  made  this  profitable. 

88 


THE  SALEM  EAST  INDIES 

owners'  friends,  varying  in  amount  from  a  box  of  cod- 
fish to  several  thousand  dollars  in  specie,  were  carried 
both  by  China  and  East-India  traders.  Captain  Gibaut, 
of  Salem,  in  1796,  "had  private  orders  to  execute  in  his 
ship  at  Canton  amounting  to  $4000,  for  the  little  ele- 
gancies of  life  ...  so  rapid  are  our  strides  to  wealth  and 
luxury,"  notes  the  Reverend  William  Bentley.  On  the 
brig  Caravan,  of  Salem  (two  hundred  sixty-seven  tons), 
early  in  1812,  Captain  Augustine  Heard  took  two  thou- 
sand silver  dollars  to  invest  for  his  father,  the  same  for 
each  brother,  and  from  twenty  to  one  hundred  dollars 
for  sundry  maiden  aunts  and  retired  Ipswich  sea-cap- 
tains. Numerous  friends  requested  him  to  purchase 
for  their  wives  red  cornelian  necklaces,  camel's-hair 
shawls,  pieces  of  cobweb  muslin  or  Mull  Mull,  straw 
carpets,  bed  coverings,  and  pots  of  preserved  ginger. 
Henry  Pickering  wanted  a  Sanskrit  bible,  and  three 
children  gave  him  a  dollar  each  to  invest  in  Calcutta.1 
Besides  there  was  a  cargo  valued  at  forty  thousand 
dollars,  and  the  first  consignment  of  missionaries,  male 
and  female,  sent  by  the  Puritan  Church  of  Massachu- 
setts to  "  India's  coral  strand."  But  the  Reverend  and 
Mrs.  Adoniram  Judson  and  Samuel  Newell  were  not 
wanted  at  Calcutta  by  the  British  authorities,  and  had 
to,. be  dropped  at  Mauritius. 

Augustine  Heard  was  a  shipmaster  whose  cool  daring 
became  legendary.  Approaching  the  Sand  Heads  in  an 
onshore  hurricane,  having  lost  his  best  bower  anchor, 
and  drawing  a  foot  more  water  than  there  was  on  the 
bar,  Captain  Heard  shook  a  reef  out  of  his  topsails, 
and  laying  the  vessel  on  her  beam  ends,  managed  to 

1  One  of  the  notes  pasted  in  the  Caravan's  invoice  book  is:  "Sir  — 
Please  to  purchase  for  Capt.  John  Barr  —  $200  —  2  Camels  Hair  Shawls 
—  White  —  2  yards  in  Length  &  I J  yards  in  width,  with  a  Broad  Palm 
leaf  Border  mostly  Green."  A  feminine  hand  has  added,  "  narrow  Border 
round  Edge  avoid  Red.  If  any  Baljance]  buy  best  Bandannas." 

89 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

scrape  across.  Once,  he  is  said  to  have  run  a  pirate 
ship  under  in  the  China  Sea.  There  are  two  versions  of 
his  return  voyage  in  the  Caravan,  after  the  War  of  1812 
had  commenced.  According  to  one,  he  sold  the  Caravan 
and  cargo  to  avoid  capture  in  a  South  American  port, 
and  disguised  as  a  shipwrecked  mariner,  with  the 
specie  proceeds  in  his  sea-chest,  took  passage  on  a 
slaver  to  Rio  de  Janeiro,  and  thence  to  Boston.  Ac- 
cording to  the  other,  the  Caravan  was  captured  off  the 
coast  of  Madagascar  by  an  English  cruiser,  which  sent 
a  lieutenant  and  prize  crew  aboard.  All  the  Ameri- 
cans were  placed  in  irons  except  the  colored  cook,  and 
Captain  Heard.  Some  days  afterwards,  a  sudden  and 
violent  storm  arose.  While  the  English  crew  was  aloft 
taking  in  sail,  and  the  lieutenant  busy  giving  orders, 
Heard  went  into  the  galley,  got  the  cook,  and  with  his 
aid  knocked  the  irons  off  his  own  people.  They  then 
seized  arms,  rushed  on  deck,  and  as  each  English  Jack 
descended  the  rigging,  clapped  him  in  irons  and  sent 
him  below.  Captain  Heard  then  extended  the  courtesies 
of  the  cabin  to  the  English  officer,  and  brought  him  and 
his  crew  as  prisoners  into  Salem  Harbor. 

On  the  Northwest  coast  of  Sumatra,  Salem  found 
wealth  and  adventure  such  as  Boston  men  obtained  on 
the  Northwest  coast  of  America.  Her  merchant  sea- 
men, like  the  Portuguese  before  them,  tracked  Eastern 
spices  to  their  source.  It  was  at  Benkulen,  in  1793, 
that  Captain  Jonathan  Carnes  heard  a  rumor  of  wild 
pepper  to  the  northwestward.  Returning  to  Salem,  he 
was  given  command  of  a  fast  schooner,  and  cleared  for 
unknown  destination.  "Without  chart  or  guide  of  any 
kind,  he  made  his  way  amid  numerous  coral  reefs,  of 
which  navigators  have  so  much  dread  even  at  the 
present  day,  as  far  as  the  port  of  Analaboo."1  His 

1  J.  H.  Reynolds,  Voyage  of  the  U.S.  Frigate  Potomac  (1835),  201. 

90 


THE  SALEM  EAST  INDIES 

cargo,  costing  (with  expenses)  eighteen  thousand  dol- 
lars, sold  for  seven  hundred  per  cent  profit  at  Salem. 
The  town  went  pepper  mad.  A  dozen  vessels  cleared 
for  Benkulen ;  but  few  of  them  got  so  much  as  a  sneeze 
for  their  trouble.  Gradually,  however,  the  secret 
leaked  out;  and  by  1800,  years  before  there  was  a 
published  chart  of  the  Malay  archipelago,  the  harbors 
of  Analabu,  Susu,  Tally-Pow,  Mingin,  Labuan-Haji, 
and  Muckie  and  all  those  treacherous  waters  now  il- 
luminated by  the  genius  of  Conrad,  were  as  familiar 
to  Salem  shipmasters  as  Danvers  River.  Twenty-one 
American  vessels,  ten  from  Salem  and  eight  from  Bos- 
ton, visited  this  coast  between  March  I  and  May  14, 
1803,  bargaining  with  local  datus  for  the  wild  pepper 
as  the  natives  brought  it  in.  Between  the  two  north- 
west coasts  there  was  little  choice,  in  point  of  danger. 
Many  a  Salem  man's  bones  lie  in  Sumatran  waters,  a 
Malay  kreese  between  the  ribs. 

By  way  of  reward,  Salem  became  the  American,  and 
for  a  time  the  world  emporium  for  pepper.  In  1791, 
the  United  States  exported  492  pounds  of  pepper; 
in  1805,  it  exported  7,559,244  pounds  —  over  seven- 
eighths  of  the  entire  Northwest  Sumatran  crop;  and 
a  very  large  proportion  of  this  was  landed  in  Salem. 
Captain  James  Cook  imported  over  one  million  pounds 
of  pepper  in  one  lading  of  his  five-hundred-ton  ship 
Eliza. 

Some  of  the  tinware  that  itinerant  Yankees  peddled 
throughout  the  Eastern  States,  was  made  from  Banka 
tin,  obtained  by  Salem  traders  from  an  island  beside 
the  Caspar  Straits.  Batavia,  the  Tyre  of  Java,  shortly 

This  is  the  usual  version  of  the  origin  of  the  Northwest  Sumatra  trade. 
W.  Vans,  however,  claims  that  he  and  Jonathan  Freeman  opened  that 
trade  in  their  brigantine  Cadet  in  1788.  (Life  of  William  Vans  (1832),  4.) 
See  forthcoming  articles  by  Mr.  George  Putnam  in  Essex  Historical 
Collections. 

91 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

after  the  ship  Massachusetts  was  refused  entrance, 
opened  her  doors  to  American  vessels,  which  brought 
home  increasing  amounts  of  sugar  and  coffee. 

The  famous  Astrea,  John  Gibaut  master,  ventured 
into  the  harbor  of  Pegu,  near  Rangoon,  in  1793,  and 
was  promptly  commandeered  by  His  Burmese  Majesty. 
This  enabled  Captain  Gibaut  to  travel  up  the  Irawaddy 
River,  collecting  curiosities  for  the  East-India  Museum 
and  for  his  Salem  pastor,  Dr.  Bentley.  He  was  un- 
doubtedly the  first  American  to  take  this  classic  road 
to  Mandalay.  No  permanent  trading  connection,  how- 
ever, seems  to  have  been  established  with  Burma. 
A  year  later,  one  of  the  numerous  Captain  Hodges  of 
Salem  adventured  a  quantity  of  gum  lacquer  from 
Pegu,  but  was  unable  to  dispose  of  it  at  any  price. 

"This  day  a  letter  from  an  Arabian  Chief,  Said 
Aimed,"  records  Dr.  Bentley  on  October  2,  1805,  "by 
Mr.  Bancroft,  a  Salem  Factor  in  those  seas.  He  men- 
tioned the  wish  of  a  Jew  to  write  to  me  in  that  country, 
from  whom  I  may  expect  to  hear  by  Capt.  Elkins." 
That  year  Salem  imported  two  million  pounds  of  coffee 
from  Arabia.  So  remote  from  the  beaten  track  of  ves- 
sels was  Mocha,  that  the  Recovery,  of  Salem,  Captain 
Joseph  Ropes,  which  opened  the  trade  in  1798,  was 
given  a  reception  similar  to  that  of  Columbus  in  the 
new  world.  In  1806,  the  ship  Essex,  Captain  Joseph 
Orne,  with  sixty  thousand  dollars  in  specie,  adventured 
up  the  Red  Sea  to  Hodeda.  At  Mocha  he  augmented 
his  crew  with  some  Arabs,  who  turned  out  to  be '  in- 
side men'  of  a  notorious  pirate.  The  Essex  was  cap- 
tured, and  her  entire  crew  massacred.  When  the  news 
reached  the  Salem  owner,  who  was  Captain  Orne's 
uncle,  he  is  said  to  have  remarked,  "Well,  the  ship  is 
insured!" 

A  more  cheerful  story  of  the  Mocha  trade  is  the 

92 


THE  SALEM  EAST  INDIES 

maiden  voyage  of  the  well-armed  ship  America,  owned 
by  George  Crowninshield  and  his  sons,  and  com- 
manded by  his  nephew,  Benjamin  Crowninshield. 
On  July  2,  1804,  she  left  Salem  with  very  positive  and 
emphatic  orders  to  proceed  to  Sumatra  for  pepper, 
and  nowhere  else ;  for  Captain  Benjamin  was  too  much 
inclined  to  use  his  own  judgment.  "Obey  orders  if  you 
break  owners,"  was  a  maxim  of  the  old  merchant  ma- 
rine. Yet  this  independent  master  received  at  Mauri- 
tius such  favorable  news  of  the  coffee  market  that  once 
more  he  determined  to  disobey.  On  November  30,  the 
America  passed  "through  the  straits  of  Babelmandel, 
and  anchored  off  Mocha,  the  Grand  Mosque  bearing 
E.  by  S."  There,  and  at  Aden  and  Macalla  Roads  she 
took  in  coffee,  gum  arabic,  hides,  goatskins,  and  senna, 
and  cleared  for  Salem. 

Now,  by  June,  1805,  when  the  America  was  sighted 
from  Salem  town,  pepper  had  fallen  and  coffee  risen 
to  such  an  extent  that  the  owners  were  praying  Captain 
Ben  had  broken  orders!  Unable  to  restrain  their  im- 
patience until  she  docked,  the  Crowninshield  brothers 
put  off  in  a  small  boat.  Approaching  her  to  leeward, 
they  began  sniffing  the  air.  One  was  sure  he  smelled 
the  desired  bean;  but  another  suggested  it  might  be 
merely  a  pot  of  coffee  on  the  galley  stove.  Finally,  dis- 
regarding all  marine  etiquette,  Benjamin  W.  Crownin- 
shield shouted,  "What's  your  cargo?  "  —  "  Pe-pe-per ! " 
answered  the  Captain,  who  was  enjoying  the  situation 
hugely.  "You  lie!  I  smell  coffee!"  roared  the  future 
Secretary  of  the  Navy  through  his  speaking-trumpet. 

Once  having  found  their  way  into  the  Pacific  Ocean, 
Salem  shipmasters  began  to  exploit  its  "  Milky-ways 
of  coral  isles,  and  low-lying,  endless,  unknown  archi- 
pelagoes and  impenetrable  Japans."  The  crews  of  Sa- 
lem vessels,  undismayed  by  the  occasional  killing  and 

93 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

eating  of  their  comrades  by  Fiji  cannibals,  gathered 
edible  birds'  nests  from  surf-beaten  rocks,  employed 
native  divers  to  fish  tortoise-shell  and  mother-of-pearl ; 
and  gathered  slimy  sea-cucumbers  ('beech  de  mer') 
from  coral  reefs,  to  make  soup  for  the  mandarins. 
Thus  a  new  medium  was  obtained  for  purchasing  China 
tea.  One  lonely  group  in  the  South  Atlantic,  Tristan 
de  Cunha,  was  taken  in  formal  possession  by  Jonathan 
Lambert,  of  Salem,  remaining  his  private  principality 
until  his  death  in  1813. 

A  second  ship  Astrea,  Henry  Prince  master,  dis- 
played her  ensign  in  Manila  Bay  on  October  3,  1796, 
and  opened  a  trade  in  sugar,  hemp,  and  indigo  that  con- 
tinued as  long  as  Salem  men  owned  vessels.  No  Salem 
boy,  in  seventeen  ninety-eight,  thought  the  Philippines 
were  canned  goods!  Most  of  our  present  insular  pos- 
sessions were  visited  by  Boston  or  Salem  ships  before 
the  nineteenth  century  —  except  Guam,  which  was 
saved  for  1801.  The  barque  Lydia,  of  Boston,  Moses 
Barnard  master,  was  chartered  by  the  Spanish  govern- 
ment to  convey  thither  a  new  governor  of  the  Mari- 
anas, with  "Lady,  three  Children  and  two  servant  girls 
and  12  men  servents,  A  Fryar  &  his  servent,  A  Judge 
and  two  servents."  The  log  of  this  voyage,  by  the 
Lydia' s  first  mate,  William  Haswell,  is  among  the  most 
entertaining  of  the  several  hundred  sea-journals  pre- 
served in  Salem.  The  Lydia  first  put  in  at  Zamboanga 
(Mindanao),  a  pleasant  place  which  produced  nothing 
but  "Cocoa  Nuts,  water  &  Girls."  Six  of  the  latter 
were  brought  on  board  by  the  governor's  sons,  with 
"Music  to  Entertain  us,  but  the  Ship  was  so  full  of 
Lumber  that  they  had  no  place  to  shew  their  Dancing 
in ;  how  ever  we  made  a  shift  to  amuse  ourselves  till  3 
in  the  Morning,  the  Currant  then  turning  and  a  light 
breeze  from  the  Northward  springing  up  sent  them  all 

94 


THE  SALEM  EAST  INDIES 

on  shore,  they  Singing  and  Playing  their  Music  all  the 
way."  At  Guam,  officers  and  crew  had  royal  enter- 
tainment. The  governor  and  family  wept  copiously  at 
their  departure,  and  pressed  livestock,  fruit,  and  other 
gifts  on  the  captain  until  they  overflowed  the  deck,  and 
had  to  be  towed  astern  in  the  jolly-boat. 

This  commerce  with  the  Far  East,  in  pursuit  of 
which  early  discoverers  had  scorned  the  barren  coast 
of  Massachusetts,  was  a  primary  factor  in  restoring 
the  commonwealth  to  prosperity  and  power,  in  giving 
her  maritime  genius  a  new  object  and  a  new  training,  in 
maintaining  a  maritime  supremacy  that  ended  in  a 
burst  of  glory  with  the  clipper  ship.  By  1800,  Massa- 
chusetts had  proved  the  power  of  her  merchants  and 
seamen,  when  unrestrained  by  a  colonial  system;  had 
given  the  lie  to  tory  pessimists  who  predicted  her 
speedy  decay  when  detached  from  the  British  Empire. 
A  tea  party  in  Boston  Harbor,  at  the  expense  of  the 
British  East  India  Company,  brought  on  the  American 
Revolution.  Twenty  years  later,  tea  and  spices  earned 
through  trafficking  with  savage  tribes,  carried  in  Mas- 
sachusetts vessels  and  handled  by  her  merchants,  were 
underselling  the  imports  of  that  mighty  monopoly  in 
the  markets  of  Europe. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

SHIPS  AND  SEAMEN 
I79O-I8I2 

SHIPBUILDING,  the  ancient  key  industry  of  Massachu- 
setts, expanded  greatly  during  the  Federalist  period. 
Exactly  how  much,  we  have  no  means  of  knowing, 
for  no  record  was  kept  of  the  many  vessels  built  for 
other  states  and  countries.  But  the  total  merchant 
and  fishing  fleet  owned  in  Massachusetts  (including 
Maine)  tripled  between  1789  and  1792,  doubled  again 
in  the  next  decade,  and  by  1810  increased  another  fifty 
per  cent,  attaining  500,000  tons,  a  figure  not  surpassed 
until  after  1830. 

The  far-flung  commerce  of  Salem  and  Boston  was 
conducted  in  vessels  that  were  small  even  by  contem- 
porary standards.  'King'  Derby's  entire  fleet  of  six 
ships,  one  barque,  four  brigs,  two  ketches,  and  a 
schooner  had  a  total  tonnage  of  2380,  less  than  the 
clipper-ship  Sovereign  of  the  Seas  a  half-century  later. 
William  Gray  owned  113  vessels  first  and  last,  before 
1815 ;  but  only  ten  of  them  were  over  300  tons  burthen, 
and  the  largest  was  425  tons.  The  average  dimensions 
of  six  famous  East-Indiamen  of  Salem,  built  between 
1794  and  1805,  are,  length  99  feet,  breadth  28  feet, 
burthen  336. l  The  second  Grand  Turk  (124  feet  long, 
564  tons),  Salem's  "Great  Ship,"  was  sold  to  New  York 
in  1795  for  $32,000,  as  "much  too  large  for  our  Port  & 
the  method  of  our  Trade."  Salem  Harbor  was  so 
shallow  that  vessels  drawing  more  than  twelve  feet 

1  The  same  length  as,  and  a  slightly  greater  breadth  than  the  Boston 
mackerel  schooner  Fannie  Belle  Alwood  in  1920. 

96 


SHIPS  AND  SEAMEN 

had  to  unload  by  lighters;  but  in  Boston,  twelve  feet 
could  be  carried  up  to  Long  Wharf  at  low  tide.  Yet 
Boston  vessels  seem  to  have  been  no  larger  than  those 
of  Salem,  and  the  average  Nor'westman  was  nearer 
two  hundred  than  three  hundred  tons. 

"A  wise  marchant  neuer  adventures  all  his  goodes 
in  one  ship,"  wrote  Sir  Thomas  More.  Even  those 
who  could  afford  large  ships  preferred  to  distribute 
the  tonnage  among  several  small  ones.  For  it  is  a  great 
mistake  to  suppose  that  the  danger  of  seafaring  de- 
creases as  tonnage  increases,  beyond  a  certain  point. 
Every  square  yard  more  sail  area,  in  those  days  of 
single  topsails,  hemp  rigging,  and  simple  purchases, 
increased  the  difficulty  of  handling.  Every  foot  more 
draft  increased  the  danger  of  navigating  uncharted 
seas  and  entering  unbuoyed  harbors.  "Lost  at  sea 
with  all  hands,"  that  frequent  epitaph  of  the  great 
clipper  ships,  was  seldom  if  ever  the  fate  of  a  Massa- 
chusetts vessel  in  the  Federal  period.  The  Crownin- 
shields  lost  but  four  of  their  great  fleet  of  East- India- 
men  by  1806;  two  on  Cape  Cod,  one  on  Egg  Harbor  bar, 
and  one  on  the  French  coast.  Massachusetts  builders, 
moreover,  had  not  yet  acquired  the  technique  to  con- 
struct large  vessels  properly.  Hence  the  superstition, 
current  in  New  England  seaports  until  1830  or  there- 
abouts, that  five  hundred  tons  was  the  limit  of  safety ; 
that  a  larger  vessel  might  break  her  back  in  a  heavy 
sea.  To  round  the  Horn  in  a  vessel  under  one  hundred 
tons,  as  did  several  of  the  Boston  Nor'westmen,  was 
a  remarkable  feat  of  seamanship.  But  the  boldest 
Yankee  shipmaster  of  1800,  if  given  the  choice,  would 
rather  have  taken  a  Chebacco  boat  around  Cape  Stiff 
than  a  two-thousand-ton  clipper  ship. 

Salem's  fleet  included  vessels  constructed  on  the 
North  River,  the  Merrimac,  or  "Down  East,"  but  her 

97 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

merchants  greatly  preferred  home-built  ships,  under 
their  immediate  supervision.  A  launching,  "the  no- 
blest sight  man  can  exhibit,"  thought  Dr.  Bentley,  was 
a  gala  occasion.  In  his  diary  for  October  31,  1807,  he 
writes:  "This  day  Mr.  Brigs  in  South  Fields  launched  a 
ship  [the  Francis]  for  Mr.  Peabody,  Merchant  of  this 
town  of  Salem,  into  South  river.  And  about  an  hour 
afterwards  Barker,  Magoun  &  Co.  launched  at  the  en- 
trance of  the  neck  into  the  Lower  harbour  a  Ship  for 
Nathaniel  Silsbee,  Merchant  of  this  Town.  This  last 
I  saw.  As  the  flats  are  level  &  the  building  ground  low, 
the  builders  could  not  have  the  advantages  of  the  two 
other  yards  which  are  steep  banks  of  the  rivers.  But 
As  soon  as  her  stem  block  was  taken  away  she  began 
with  a  gradual  increased  motion  to  descend  to  the 
water,  &  without  the  least  interruption  or  crack  of 
anything  near  her,  she  rode  upon  the  Ocean  amidst  the 
incessant  shouts  of  the  Spectators." 

Most  American  seaports,  including  Boston,  have 
shamefully  neglected  the  splendid  history  of  their 
maritime  efforts.  But  Salem  loved  her  ships,  and 
cherished  their  memory.  Hence  she  has  taken  first 
place  by  default,  and  her  many  writers  have  uncon- 
sciously given  the  modern  public  (as  did  their  ances- 
tors the  South-Sea  islanders)  the  impression  that  Sa- 
lem means  America;  that  nowhere  else  in  the  world 
were  built  or  owned  such  fast  and  wonderful  vessels. 
The  Peabody  Museum  ship  portraits  deepen  this  im- 
pression; for  Salem  employed  the  best  artists  of  the 
day  to  depict  her  vessels  —  Antoine  Roux,  of  Mar- 
seilles, portraitiste  de  navires  unsurpassed  for  precision 
of  detail  and  artistic  effect;  Michele  Corn£,  whom  the 
Mount  Vernon  brought  from  Naples  in  1800,  to  pass 
the  rest  of  his  long  life  in  New  England  seaports;  and 
his  pupil  George  Ropes.  "  In  every  house  we  see  the 

98 


SHIPS  AND  SEAMEN 

ships  of  our  harbor  delineated  for  those  who  have 
navigated  them,"  wrote  Dr.  Bentley  in  1804;  and  the 
same  holds  true  to-day.  When  Salem  capital  was 
transferred  to  cotton  mills,  her  merchants,  unlike 
those  of  Boston  and  New  York,  did  not  discard  their 
ship  pictures  in  favor  of  steel  engravings  after  Sir 
Edmund  Landseer,  or  dismal  anonymous  etchings  of 
wintry  trees. 

Quaint  and  interesting  the  ships  of  the  Federalist 
period  certainly  were,  with  their  varied  coloring 
(bright,  lemon,  or  orange  waist  against  black,  blue,  or 
dark  green  topsides,  and  a  gay  contrasting  color  for 
the  inside  of  bulwarks);  their  carved  'gingerbread 
work'  on  stern,  and  'quick- work'  about  the  bows; 
their  few  large,  well-proportioned  sails  (royals  seldom, 
and  sky  sails  never  being  carried),  and  their  occa- 
sionally graceful  sheer.  But  strip  off  their  ornaments, 
and  you  find,  with  few  exceptions,  a  chunky,  wall- 
sided  model.  The  big  ships  of  that  day  were  built  in 
Philadelphia  and  Europe;  the  small,  fast  clipper 
schooners  and  brigs,  on  Chesapeake  Bay.  New  Eng- 
land builders  obeyed  the  ancient  tradition  that  "ships 
require  a  spreading  body  at  the  water's  edge,  both 
afore  and  abaft,  to  support  them  from  being  plung'd 
too  deep  into  the  sea."  1  The  apparently  sharp  bow  in 
some  contemporary  pictures  is  really  nothing  but 
deadwood,  an  ornamental  cutwater  preserving  the 
tradition  of  a  Roman  galley's  rostrum.  The  real  bows 
were  of  the  '  cod's  head '  type,  bluff  and  full,  buffeting 
a  passage  for  the  ship  by  sheer  strength.  And  in  no 
Massachusetts- built  ship  of  this  period  whose  dimen- 
sions are  preserved,  was  the  length  as  much  as  four 
times  the  beam. 

1  William  Hutchinson,  Treatise  on  Practical  Seamanship  (Liverpool, 
1777),  12. 

99 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

Several  of  these  vessels  made  good,  but  not  remark- 
able passages.  The  ship  Fame  (112  feet  long,  263 
tons),  whose  launching  was  a  great  event  of  1802,  once 
made  Vineyard  Haven  in  ninety-two  days  from  Su- 
matra, completing  the  round  voyage  in  seven  months 
and  seven  days.  But  the  full-bodied  New  York 
packet-ship  Natchez,  built  in  1831,  made  her  home 
port  in  sixty-seven  days  from  Java  Head,  when  driven 
by  'Bully'  Waterman.  The  fastest  Salem  vessel  of 
our  period  was  the  ship  America,  114  feet  long,  31  feet 
beam,  and  473  tons  burthen,  built  in  1809  by  Retire 
Becket,  with  the  aid  of  a  local  Scots  draughtsman. 
Her  beautiful  portrait  by  Antoine  Roux  suggests 
easier  lines  than  were  then  common.  But  her  record 
day's  run  (over  240  miles)  and  bursts  of  speed  (13 
knots)  were  made  as  a  privateer,  with  hull  razeed  to 
331  tons,  and  a  lofty  rig  that  no  mere  merchantman 
could  have  carried.  Another  much-touted  Salem- 
built  vessel  is  the  frigate  Essex;  but  a  careful  reading 
of  Captain  David  Porter's  log  of  her  Pacific  cruise 
proves  her  to  have  been  an  uncommonly  slow  sailer 
for  an  American  frigate.  In  the  Peabody  Museum, 
Salem,  is  an  interesting  half-model  of  the  ketch  Eliza 
(93  X  25  x  9  feet,  184  tons),  built  by  Enos  Briggs  in 
1794,  and  indicating  a  striving  after  speed.  She  has  a 
curved  stem,  hollow  water-lines,  the  stern  of  a  modern 
navy  cutter,  and  considerable  deadrise;  suggesting 
both  a  Baltimore  clipper  and  the  yacht  America.1  The 
Eliza  once  made  a  round  voyage  to  India  in  nine 
months.  She  must  have  carried  very  little  cargo  com- 
pared with  the  usual  chunky  type,  for  which  reason, 
possibly,  the  experiment  led  to  nothing. 

1  Very  likely  her  lines  were  copied  from  a  Chesapeake  Bay  schooner. 
The  "Fast-sailing  Virginia  built  schooner  Fox,  30  tons,  58  feet,"  is  ad- 
vertised for  sale  in  the  Salem  Gazette  of  July  15,  1796. 

IOO 


JOSEPH  PEABODY'S  SHIP  FRANCIS 


THE  CROWNINSHIELDS'  SHIP  AMERICA 
TWO  SALEM  SHIP  PORTRAITS  BY  ROtJX  OF  MARSEILLES 


SHIPS  AND  SEAMEN 

It  did  not  take  much  in  those  days  to  give  a  vessel  a 
reputation  for  speed.  In  1816,  Augustine  Heard,  who 
had  commanded  Boston  and  Salem  vessels  for  years, 
considered  the  brig  Hindu  fast,  because  on  a  voyage 
from  Calcutta  to  Boston  she  sailed  7  to  7.5  knots  an 
hour  within  six  points  of  the  wind,  and  8.9  knots  off 
the  wind.  Dr.  Bentley  notes  that  several  Salem  ves- 
sels, unable  in  their  outward  passage  to  breast  the 
winds  and  currents  off  the  coast  of  Brazil,  were  forced 
ignominiously  to  run  home. 

Until  some  competent  naval  architect  makes  a 
thorough  study  of  American  shipbuilding  (and  may 
the  day  come  soon!)  no  one  has  a  right  to  be  dogmatic. 
But  I  venture  the  opinion  that  Salem-built  vessels  of 
the  Federalist  period  were  in  no  way  superior  to  those 
constructed  elsewhere  in  Massachusetts;  that  the 
builders  of  New  York,  the  Delaware,  and  Long  Island 
Sound  were  probably  quite  as  competent  as  those  of 
New  England;  and  that  the  first  real  advance  in  the 
design  of  large  American  merchantmen,  subsequent  to 
the  Revolution,  came  during  or  after  the  War  of  1812. 

The  lower  Merrimac  from  Haverhill  to  Newbury- 
port  was  undoubtedly  the  greatest  shipbuilding  center 
of  New  England,  at  this  period  as  in  colonial  days. 
Currier's  rare  monograph  on  Merrimac  shipbuilding 
lists  about  1115  vessels  constructed  and  registered 
there  between  1793  and  1815,  inclusive;  and  a  number 
constructed  for  outside  parties  are  not  to  be  found 
on  his  list.  Twelve  thousand  tons  of  shipping  were 
launched  on  the  Merrimac  in  the  banner  year  of  1810. 
As  in  other  shipbuilding  centers,  all  the  cordage,  sails, 
blocks,  pumps,  ironwork,  anchors,  and  other  fittings 
were  made  locally,  employing  hundreds  of  skilled 
mechanics.  The  jolly  ropemakers  of  Salem  used  to 
outwit  the  Puritan  taboo  on  a  merry  Christmas,  by 

101 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

feasting  St.  Catherine  of  Alexandria,  the  patron  saint 
of  their  profession,  every  December  25 ! 

It  was  a  Newburyport  builder,  Orlando  B.  Merrill, 
who  in  1794  invented  the  lift  or  water-line  model, 
probably  the  greatest  invention  in  the  technique  of 
naval  architecture  between  the  days  of  Drake  and 
the  days  of  Ericsson.  The  lifts  of  the  model,  measured 
with  a  foot-rule,  determined  the  dimensions  of  the 
vessel;  and  when  she  was  completed,  the  model  was 
neatly  sawed  amidships,  one-half  going  to  the  owner, 
the  other  remaining  in  the  builder's  shop.  Every 
builder  was  his  own  designer,  as  a  matter  of  course. 
The  technique  was  handed  down  from  father  to  son; 
but  there  was  such  competition  that  no  shipbuilder 
ever  grew  rich  in  the  Federalist  period.1 

Medford,  where  the  Blessing  of  the  Bay  was  launched 
in  1631,  became  again  a  shipbuilding  center  in  1802. 
In  that  year  Thatcher  Magoun,  of  Pembroke,  a  pupil 
of  his  townsman  Enos  Briggs  at  Salem,  examined  the 
shores  and  bed  of  the  Mystic  River.  Finding  them 
free  of  obstruction,  noting  the  noble  oak  groves  in 
the  neighborhood,  and  estimating  that  the  Middlesex 
Canal,  just  completed,  would  enable  him  to  tap  the 
timber  resources  of  the  upper  Merrimac,  he  decided  to 
establish  a  shipyard  at  Medford.  Calvin  Turner,  of 
Scituate,  and  another  member  of  the  house  of  Briggs, 
joined  him  in  1804.  From  the  start,  these  Medford 
builders  specialized  in  large  ships  and  brigs  —  two 
hundred  and  fifty  tons  up  —  but  until  the  War  of  1812 
they  only  built  two  or  three  apiece  annually.  After 
1815,  the  vessels  that  he  built  for  the  China  trade  gave 

1  I  have  found  little  data  on  the  cost  of  vessels  at  this  period.  The 
Merrimac-built  brig  Enterprise,  164  tons,  cost  $5000  to  build  in  1792, 
and  the  Maine-built  ship  Wells,  205  tons,  sold  when  three  years  old  for 
$7000  in  1804. 

102 


SHIPS  AND  SEAMEN 

Thatcher  Magoun  a  reputation  second  to  none  among 
American  shipbuilders;  and  "  Medford-built "  came  to 
mean  the  best. 

Boston  and  Charlestown  yards  did  little  but  naval 
construction  and  repairing  during  the  Federalist  pe- 
riod, although  several  fine  ships  were  there  built  by 
Josiah  Barker  (of  North  River  origin),  and  Edmund 
Hart,  the  master  builders  of  the  Constitution.  The  Bos- 
ton fleet,  three  times  as  great  as  Salem 's  and  second 
only  to  New  York's,  was  largely  procured  from  the  Maine 
coast,  the  Merrimac,  and  the  North  River.  That  narrow 
tidal  stream,  dividing  the  towns  of  Marshfield  and  Pem- 
broke from  Scituate,  Norwell,  and  Hanover,  was  like 
the  Merrimac  a  cradle  of  New  England  shipbuilding. 

The  North  River  attained  the  height  of  its  activity 
in  Federalist  days.  Thirty  vessels  were  completed 
here  in  1801,  and  an  average  of  twenty- three  a  year, 
1 799  to  1 804.  Looking  downstream  from  the  Hanover 
bridge,  eleven  shipyards  were  in  view,  filled  with  ves- 
sels in  various  stages  of  construction.  Every  morning 
at  daybreak  the  shipwrights  might  be  seen  crossing 
the  pastures  or  walking  along  the  sedgy  riverbank  to 
their  work,  for  a  dollar  a  day  from  dawn  to  dark. 
When  the  sun  rose  above  the  Marshfield  hills,  like  a 
great  red  ball  through  the  river  mist,  there  began  the 
cheery  clatter  of  wooden  shipbuilding  —  clean,  musi- 
cal sounds  of  steel  on  wood,  iron  on  anvil,  creak  of 
tackle  and  rattle  of  sheave;  with  much  geeing  and 
hawing  as  ox-teams  brought  in  loads  of  fragrant  oak, 
pine,  and  hackmatack,  and  a  snatch  of  chanty  as  a 
large  timber  is  hoisted  into  place.  At  eleven  o'clock, 
and  again  at  four  came  the  foreman's  welcome  shout 
of  "Grog  O!"  For  it  took  rum  to  build  ships  in  those 
days;  a  quart  to  a  ton,  by  rough  allowance;  and  more 
to  launch  her  properly. 

103 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

Standing  on  this  same  Hanover  bridge  to-day,  it  is 
hard  to  believe  what  the  records  show  to  be  true,  that 
within  a  few  hundred  yards,  where  there  seems  hardly 
water  enough  for  a  good-sized  motor  boat,  were  built 
for  New  York  merchants  in  1810-11  the  ships  Mount 
Vernon  l  and  Mohawk,  respectively  352  and  407  tons 
burthen.  Farther  down,  near  the  Columbia's  birth- 
place, even  greater  vessels  were  launched  —  poking 
their  sterns  into  the  opposite  bank,  and  having  to  be 
dug  out.  Getting  them  down  this  narrow,  tortuous 
river,  full  of  rocks  and  shoals,  was  a  ticklish  business, 
entrusted  to  a  special  breed  of  North  River  pilots. 
Crews  of  men  followed  the  vessel  on  both  banks,  with 
long  ropes  attached  to  each  bow  and  quarter,  hauling 
or  checking  as  the  pilot,  enthroned  between  knight- 
heads,  commanded,  "Haul  her  over  to  Ma'sh-field!" 
or,  "  Haul  her  over  to  Sit-u-wate ! "  Motive  power  was 
provided  by  kedging,  heaving  up  to  an  anchor  dropped 
ahead  by  the  pilot's  boat.  Fourteen  tides  were  some- 
times required  to  get  a  vessel  to  sea,  as  the  mocking 
river  sauntered  for  miles  behind  the  barrier  beach,  and 
dribbled  out  over  a  bar  that  taxed  all  Yankee  ingenu- 
ity to  surmount.  When  shipbuilding  had  ceased,  a 
new  outlet  opened  at  the  nearest  point  to  the  ocean. 

The  North  River  builders  did  much  work  for  "for- 
eign" (i.e.,  non-Massachusetts)  order,  and  for  the 
whalemen.  Their  vessels  seem  to  have  lacked  even 
a  local  reputation  for  speed.  Very  few  paintings  of 
them  have  survived.  One,  of  the  ship  Minerva,  223 
tons,  built  by  Joshua  Magoun  at  Pembroke  in  1808  for 
Ezra  Weston  and  others  of  Duxbury,  shows  a  vessel 
built  in  the  best  style  of  the  day;  gray-blue  topsides 

1  Length  99  feet,  6  inches,  breadth  28  feet,  depth  14  feet,  3  inches. 
The  largest  vessel  ever  constructed  on  the  North  River  was  another  ship 
Mount  Vernon,  464  tons,  built  in  1815  for  Philadelphia  by  Samuel  Hartt. 

IO4 


SHIPS  AND  SEAMEN 

and  bulwarks,  with  bright  waist,  quarter-galleries, 
beautiful  quick-work  on  the  bows,  and  a  finely  pro- 
portioned sail  plan. 

Fishermen  and  other  small  vessels  were  constructed 
in  Plymouth  Bay  at  this  period ;  and  at  Wareham  and 
Mattapoisett  on  Buzzard's  Bay  were  more  children 
of  North  River,  building  three-hundred-ton  whalers 
for  Nantucket,  and  neutral  traders  for  New  Bedford. 
Fishing  vessels  were  also  built  on  Cape  Cod,  Cape  Ann, 
and  Essex,  as  well  as  in  the  larger  centers.  The  pres- 
ence in  the  Boston  registry  of  the  two-hundred-ton 
ship  Merry  Quaker,  built  at  Dighton  in  1795,  proves 
that  that  center  of  religious  dissent  on  the  Taunton 
was  up  and  doing.  But  having  viewed  the  Merrimac, 
Salem,  the  Mystic  and  North  Rivers,  we  have  made 
the  rounds  of  the  greater  shipyards  in  Massachusetts 
proper. 


And  now  for  the  sailors.  A  frequent  occurrence  in 
the  New  England  of  our  period  is  illustrated  by  a  pretty 
story  of  Cohasset.  One  spring  evening  young  South- 
ward Pratt,  a  farmer's  barefoot  boy,  goes  out  as  usual 
to  drive  the  cattle  home.  But  the  cows  are  heard 
lowing  at  the  pasture  bars,  long  after  their  accustomed 
hour  to  be  milked.  There  is  no  trace  of  the  lad.  Some- 
thing called  him  from  that  rocky  pasture;  a  sea- turn 
in  the  wind,  perhaps;  or  a  glimpse  of  Massachusetts 
Bay,  deep  blue  and  sail-studded,  laughing  in  the  May 
sunshine.  True  to  his  name,  Southward  obeyed  the 
call. 

Three  years  pass.  The  cows  are  now  tended  by  young 
Mercy  Gannett,  who  has  come  from  Scituate  to  live 
with  the  Pratts  as  hired  girl,  in  the  friendly  fashion  of 

105 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

the  day.  One  summer  evening  she  comes  running  home 
from  the  pasture,  frightened,  breathless.  A  strange 
young  man  with  bronzed  face  and  lithe,  free  move- 
ments, had  appeared  at  the  pasture  bars,  and  an- 
nounced he  would  drive  the  cattle  home  that  evening. 
Of  course  it  was  the  prodigal  son;  and  naturally  he 
married  Mercy,  and  lived  happily  ever  after. 

Southward's  sudden  departure,  and  his  return,  are 
both  typical  of  the  Massachusetts  merchant  marine. 
The  Bay  State,  more  seafaring  in  her  taste  (if  one  in- 
cludes Maine)  than  any  other  American  common- 
wealth, has  never  had  a  native  deep-sea  proletariat. 
Her  fleet  was  manned  by  successive  waves  of  adven- 
ture-seeking boys,  and  officered  by  such  of  them  as 
determined  to  make  the  sea  their  calling.  The  Euro- 
pean type  of  sailor,  the  "old  salt"  of  English  fiction, 
content  to  serve  before  the  mast  his  entire  lifetime, 
was  almost  unknown  in  New  England.  High  wages 
and  the  ocean's  lure  pulled  the  Yankee  boys  to  sea; 
but  only  promotion  —  or  rum  —  could  keep  them 
there.  If  Southward  or  Hiram  enjoyed  his  first  voyage 
and  made  good,  he  was  soon  given  an  officer's  berth, 
of  which  there  were  plenty  vacant  in  a  marine  that  in- 
creased from  58,800  to  435,700  tons  (excluding  fisher- 
men1) between  1789  and  1810,  which  required  from 
eleven  to  fifteen  men  per  ton,  and  in  which  the  pro- 
portion of  officers  to  seamen  was  not  less  than  one  to 
five.  If  quickly  cured  of  his  wanderlust,  he  went  back 
to  the  farm,  and  was  replaced  by  another  boy.  When 
the  embargo  tied  up  Salem  shipping,  the  discharged 
crews  returned  to  their  villages  —  precisely  as  did  the 
Russian  workmen  during  the  late  Revolution.. 

Speaking  broadly,  officers'  berths  in  European  ma- 

1  For  the  crews  of  fishermen,  to  which  these  statements  do  not  apply, 
see  chapter  x. 

I O6 


SHIPS  AND  SEAMEN 

rines  were  class  preserves,  going  by  favor  and  influ- 
ence to  the  sons  of  shipmasters,  merchants,  and  their 
dependents.  Few  European  sailors  had  the  education 
to  qualify  themselves  for  command.  But  in  the  Massa- 
chusetts marine  the  great  majority  of  masters  came 
in  through  the  hawse-hole,  and  the  vast  majority  of 
seamen  had  sufficient  command  of  the  three  R's  to 
post  a  log,  draft  a  protest,  draw  up  a  manifest,  and, 
with  a  little  instruction  on  shore  or  shipboard,  find  a 
position  at  sea.  Captain  Zachary  G.  Lamson,  of  Bev- 
erly, tells  of  sailing  as  foremast  hand  on  a  Salem  brigan- 
tine,  every  one  of  whose  crew  of  thirteen  rose  to  be 
master  of  a  vessel.  With  officers  thoroughly  trained  in 
the  rudiments  of  their  profession,  and  young,  ambi- 
tious seamen  culled  from  the  most  active  element  of  a 
pushing  race,  it  is  no  wonder  that  the  Massachusetts 
marine  achieved  great  things. 

Never,  save  possibly  at  some  colonial  period,  has 
the  Massachusetts  marine  been  one  hundred  per  cent 
American.  In  Federalist  days,  it  certainly  contained  an 
appreciable  minority  of  foreigners.  How  much,  it  is 
impossible  to  say.  Not  until  1817  did  federal  law  re- 
quire two-thirds  of  a  crew  to  be  American.  Even  be- 
fore 1793  we  find  a  foreign  minority  in  the  crew  lists 
of  some  famous  Pacific  traders; 1  and  after  that  date, 

1  On  the  ship  Massachusetts  in  1790,  there  were  six  petty  officers  from 
Massachusetts,  four  from  England,  and  one  each  from  New  Hampshire, 
Ireland,  Scotland,  and  Sweden.  Before  the  mast  were  nineteen  from 
Massachusetts,  seven  from  other  New  England  states,  ten  from  England, 
six  from  Ireland,  and  one  each  from  Scotland  and  Virginia  (Delano,  Voy- 
ages, 27).  Eight  nationalities  were  represented  in  the  Boston's  crew  of 
fifteen,  in  1803  (Jewitt's  Narrative);  but  this  crew  was  enlisted  in  Eng- 
land. The  New  York  brig  Betsey,  in  the  China  trade,  picked  up  her 
crew  at  New  Haven  and  Stonington  (Edmund  Fanning,  Voyages,  1833 
ed.,  69).  The  Margaret,  Captain  James  Magee,  had  two  Swedes,  one 
Dutchman,  and  sixteen  Americans  before  the  mast.  On  the  Boston 
ship  Hercules,  in  a  voyage  to  Calcutta  in  1792-94,  all  four  officers,  eight 

107 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

when  British  subjects  with  forged  naturalization  pa- 
pers, or  birth  certificates  purchased  from  a  discharged 
American,  sought  whatever  protection  the  American 
flag  afforded,  these  crew  lists  are  open  to  suspicion.  A 
Spanish  boy  named  Benito,  who  joined  the  Astrea  at 
Cadiz,  shipped  on  his  next  voyage  as  Benjamin  Eaton, 
of  Salem.  Captain  Samuel  Snow,  of  Cohasset,  was 
really  Salvador  Sabate  y  Morell,  brought  from  Spain 
many  years  before  by  Captain  Ephraim  Snow,  of 
Truro.  William  Gray  testified  in  1813  that  in  his  opin- 
ion one-fifth  of  the  seamen  in  the  American  merchant 
marine  were  foreigners.  Adam  Seybert,  the  statisti- 
cian, estimated  one-sixth  in  1807.  Probably  the  pro- 
portion was  less  in  New  England,  where  the  native 
supply  was  abundant.  A  British  agent  was  told  by 
Salem  merchants  in  1808  that  they  no  longer  em- 
ployed British  seamen,  in  order  to  avoid  trouble  from 
impressment.  John  Lowell  asserts  that  only  the  ves- 
sels of  the  middle  and  southern  states,  where  the 
native  population  had  little  maritime  aptitude,  em- 
ployed foreigners  to  any  extent.  This  statement  must 
be  taken  with  caution,  as  made  for  political  effect ;  but 
the  argument  is  reasonable.  Only  a  careful  examina- 
tion and  rigorous  checking-up  of  the  crew  lists  in  our 
custom-house  records  can  establish  the  truth. 

Looking  over  these  crew  lists  of  registered  vessels, 
one  finds  a  small,  constant  minority  of  foreigners  — 
not  only  Englishmen,  but  Germans,  Scandinavians, 
and  Latins  —  who  acknowledge  themselves  such.  But 
the  great  majority  profess  to  be  native-born  Yan- 
kees, and  probably  were.  Newburyport  drew  farmers' 

out  of  nine  petty  officers,  and  fifteen  out  of  twenty-five  seamen  were 
Massachusetts  men.  The  other  petty  officer  and  one  seaman  were  Irish, 
seven  seamen  were  English,  and  two  doubtful.  (MS.  Journals,  Essex 
Institute.) 

1 08 


SHIPS  AND  SEAMEN 

boys  from  the  valley  of  the  Merrimac  and  from  all 
southern  New  Hampshire.  Marblehead's  sailors  were 
mostly  of  the  tough  local  breed.  Salem  drew  upon  her 
own  population,  and  all  Essex  County;  her  vessels  also 
include  a  large  number  of  men  from  the  Middle  States 
and  Baltimore.1  Boston's  crew  lists  have  been  de- 
stroyed; but  most  Cape  Cod  boys  seem  to  have  gone 
there  for  a  start.  The  youthfulness  of  them  is  striking. 
Most  are  in  their  teens  and  early  twenties;  seamen 
over  thirty  are  rare,  and  over  forty  almost  unknown. 
The  few  older  men  were  probably  victims  of  drink, 
who  squandered  their  wages  at  the  end  of  each  voyage, 
in  classic  sailor  .fashion,  and  had  no  other  recourse  but 
to  reship. 

Tradition,  love  of  adventure,  desire  to  see  the  world, 
and  the  social  prestige  of  the  shipmaster's  calling  were 
partly  responsible  for  Yankee  boys  going  to  sea.  Few 
could  grow  up  in  a  seaport  town  and  resist  the  lure. 
For  boys  in  the  inland  towns,  seafaring  offered  the 
only  alternative  to  clodhopping,  the  sole  means  of 
foreign  travel,  and  the  best  opportunity  to  gather 
wealth.  The  West  was  not  yet  a  word  to  fire  the  imagi- 
nation. Hewing  out  a  new  farm  in  the  Green  Moun- 
tains or  the  Genesee  Valley  did  not  promise  much 
variety  from  home  life.  One  could  fight  Indians  on  the 
Northwest  Coast  —  and  play  with  the  Kanaka  girls 
between  fights.  Ordinary  life,  to  be  sure,  was  not  so 
dismal  in  New  England  farming  towns  as  the  self- 
styled  experts  in  Puritanism  would  have  us  think. 

1  On  the  ship  Restitution  of  Salem  in  1804,  out  of  nine  seamen  seven 
give  their  residence  as  Baltimore,  although  two  were  born  in  Salem,  two 
in  Germany,  and  one  each  in  North  Carolina,  Rhode  Island,  and  Phila- 
delphia. On  the  ship  John  of  Salem,  250  tons,  in  1804  nine  seamen  give 
their  birthplace  in  Essex  County,  nine  elsewhere  in  Massachusetts,  three 
elsewhere  in  New  England,  two  in  New  Jersey,  one  each  in  Maryland, 
"America,"  and  Denmark. 

109 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

There  was  a  succession  of  husking-bees  and  barn-rais- 
ings and  rustic  dances  and  sleighing  parties,  well  lu- 
bricated with  rum.  But  imagine  the  effect  of  a  young 
man  returning  with  tales  of  pirates  and  sea-fights  and 
South  Sea  Islands,  with  'cumshaws'  of  tea  and  silk 
and  Chinese  carving  for  his  mother  and  sweetheart, 
and  a  bag  of  silver  dollars  to  boot. 

For  one  of  the  chief  attractions  of  seafaring  was  the 
high  wages  that  were  not  only  earned,  but  actually 
paid,  in  the  Federalist  period.  The  Columbia,  on  her 
first  voyage,  paid  ordinary  seamen  but  $5,  and  able 
seamen  $7.50  per  month;  but  she  sailed  in  a  period  of 
unemployment.  Wages  quickly  rose  with  commercial 
expansion.  By  1799,  J.  &  T.  Lamb  were  paying  boys 
$8  to  $10,  ordinary  seamen  $14  to  $17,  able  seamen 
$18,  and  petty  officers  up  to  $24  per  month,  in  the 
Northwest  fur  trade.  The  crew  of  their  snow  Sea  Otter 
was  paid  off  with  $500  to  $600  each,  after  deducting 
$100  to  $150  for  articles  furnished  from  the  slop  chest, 
on  which  (if  the  Lambs  followed  the  practice  of  Bryant 
&  Sturgis)  the  men  were  charged  at  least  one  hundred 
per  cent  profit.  In  addition  they  could  make  a  couple 
of  hundred  dollars  on  a  judicious  investment  at  Can- 
ton, stuffed  into  their  sea-chests. 

Data  on  wages  in  other  trade  routes  are  scarce,  but 
what  we  have  indicate  a  rise  to  a  similar  high  level. 
Israel  Thorndike,  of  Beverly,  was  paying  ordinary  sea- 
men $4.50  and  able  seamen  $7  per  month  in  schooner 
voyages  to  the  West  Indies  and  Portugal  in  1790.  In 
1794,  the  A.B.'s  rate  had  risen  to  $10.  On  the  U.S. 
frigate  Essex,  in  1799,  boys  and  ordinary  seamen  got 
from  $5  to  $14,  able  seamen  $17,  besides  prize  money; 
at  a  time  when  an  army  private's  pay  was  $3  per  month. 
According  to  a  French  admiral  in  1806,  some  seamen  he 
impressed  from  an  American  brig  were  getting  $17. 

no 


SHIPS  AND  SEAMEN 

In  the  Russian  trade  in  1811,  William  Gray  is  paying 
his  ordinary  seamen  $16  and  his  A.B.'s  $20  and  $21. 
Senator  Lloyd,  of  Massachusetts,  stated  early  in  1812 
that  the  average  pay  of  American  seamen  was  $22.50 
per  month. 

Shore  wages,  in  comparison,  were  low.  Common 
labor  received  but  eighty  cents  to  a  dollar  a  day  in  New 
England  between  1800  and  1810,  and  out  of  this  had 
to  feed  and  house  itself.  There  were  few  opportunities 
for  wage-earning,  outside  farm  labor.  Consequently 
many  young  men  went  to  sea  merely  to  lay  by  a  little 
money  to  get  married  on,  or  buy  a  farm.  But  many  of 
them  never  returned  from  their  dangerous  calling. 
Yellow  Jack  contracted  in  a  West-India  port  disposed 
of  many  a  stout  ploughboy.  We  hear  of  schooners 
limping  home  from  the  Spanish  Main,  sailed  only  by 
one  sickly  man  and  a  boy.  Out  of  634  members  of  the 
Essex  Lodge  of  Free  Masons  in  Salem,  293  were  mari- 
ners and  246  master  mariners;  of  these  50  were  lost  at 
sea  and  42  died  in  foreign  ports.  "By  the  arrival  of 
Capt.  Phillips  from  Calcutta  in  the  ship  Recovery" 
writes  Dr.  Bentley,  "we  learn  of  the  death  of  Winthrop 
Gray,  the  last  of  a  company  of  jolly  fellows  at  Salem. 
We  hear  of  the  death  of  several  of  our  promising  young 
seamen."  Within  a  few  yards  of  each  other  in  the  old 
graveyard  at  Kingston,  overlooking  Plymouth  Bay, 
may  still  be  seen  the  following  memorial  stones: 

Erected  in  memory  of  Capt.  Joshua  Delano  who  died  in  Havanna 
April  2,  1800  aged  31  years. 

Erected  in  memory  of  Capt.  William  Delano,  who  died  on  his 
passage  home  from  Batavia  Octr.  21,  1797,  aged  27  years. 

In  memory  of  Peleg  Wadsworth,  who  was  drowned  February 
24th  1795  in  Lat.  39  N.  Long.  70  W.  aged  21  years  6  months  and 
5  days. 

Ill 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

In  memory  of  Amasa  Holmes,  who  died  in  his  passage  from 
Cronstadt  to  Boston  Jan'y  30,  1834,  in  the  24th  year  of  his  age. 

In  memory  of  Simeon  Washburn  who  was  drowned  July  6,  1805, 
aged  24  years. 

The  only  approach  to  a  privileged  class  in  the  Massa- 
chusetts fleet  was  the  supercargoes.  This  position  — 
the  business  agent  of  the  owners  on  shipboard  —  was 
often  reserved  for  Harvard  graduates,  merchants' 
sons,  and  other  young  men  of  good  family  who  had 
neither  the  taste  nor  the  ruggedness  for  the  rough-and- 
tumble  of  forecastle  life.  His  position  was  no  sinecure. 
The  relationship  with  the  master,  between  whose 
functions  and  the  supercargo's  there  was  no  sharp  line, 
required  diplomatic  qualities.  Responsibility  for  sell- 
ing and  obtaining  cargoes  required  self-reliance,  and 
sound  knowledge  of  world  commerce  and  economics. 
John  Bromfield,  a  supercargo  with  two  generations  of 
Boston  merchants  back  of  him,  read  Henry  Cole- 
brooke's  "Husbandry  and  Commerce  of  Bengal," 
William  Marsden's  "History  of  Sumatra,"  Colonel 
Symes's  "Embassy  to  Ava,"  Stavorinus's  "Voyage  a 
Batavia,"  and  Wilcocke's  "History  of  Buenos  Ayres," 
to  qualify  himself  for  his  business.  As  supercargo  un- 
der Captain  Bill  Sturgis  in  the  Atahualpa,  he  informed 
the  master  of  the  pirate  junks'  approach  off  Macao  — 
his  brother  had  been  killed  by  Malay  pirates  a  few 
years  before  —  and  fought  like  a  lion  during  the  action. 
Joseph  W.  Cogswell,  one  of  that  group  of  New  England 
intellectuals  who  attended  Gottingen,  first  changed 
his  sky  if  not  his  mind  as  supercargo  on  William  Gray's 
brig  Radius,  in  the  most  difficult  days  of  neutral  trade. 
Patrick  T.  Jackson,  pioneer  cotton  manufacturer  and 
founder  of  the  city  of  Lowell,  learned  his  first  lessons 
from  the  world  as  clerk  to  his  brother  Captain  Henry 

112 


SHIPS  AND  SEAMEN 

Jackson,  on  J.  &  T.  H.  Perkins's  ship  Thomas  Russell, 
in  the  Mediterranean  and  East-India  trade. 

A  supercargo  was  occasionally  promoted  to  master 
mariner,  as  in  the  case  of  Dr.  Bowditch;  but  there  were 
few  captains  in  the  Massachusetts  fleet  who  had  not 
worked  their  way  up  from  the  forecastle.  In  spite  of 
this  democratic  method  of  selection,  New  England 
shipmasters  were  distinguished  for  their  gentlemanly 
qualities.  The  English  merchant  marine,  in  spite  of 
privilege,  was  still  officered  by  Captain  Cuttles  and 
Hatchways,  of  the  type  described  by  Smollett.  If  an 
English  gentleman  went  to  sea,  he  chose  the  navy.  But 
in  New  England  the  social  prestige  of  the  merchant 
service  remained  as  high  as  in  colonial  days.  Gentle- 
men of  family  and  education  set  the  quarterdeck 
standards,  to  which  homespun  recruits  conformed  as 
best  they  could.  Consequently  we  find  American  ship- 
masters received  into  the  upper  bourgeois  society  of 
the  seaports  where  they  traded ;  and  not  infrequently 
marrying  Spanish  or  Italian  girls  of  good  family. 
Captain  E.  H.  Derby,  Jr.,  was  entertained  by  Nelson 
aboard  the  Victory.  The  same  wages  and  commissions 
were  given  generally  as  in  the  Canton  trade,1  although 
naturally  the  latter  was  the  most  lucrative,  and  ob- 
tained the  best  men.  Thus  the  officers  became  partners 
in  every  voyage.  Not  infrequently  a  shipmaster  re- 
tired by  the  age  of  thirty  with  sufficient  capital  to  start 
a  mercantile  business  of  his  own.  The  master  mariners 
whose  names  are  in  the  records  of  the  Boston  Marine 
Society  before  1812,  were  the  merchant-shipowners  of 
the  next  generation. 

Hitherto,  Yankee  shipmasters  had  never  been  con- 
spicuous in  navigation.  In  seamanship  they  were 
preeminent;  in  rigging,  handling,  and  caring  for  their 

1  Chapter  vi. 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

vessels  —  in  getting  the  last  ounce  of  speed  and  service 
out  of  them.  Having  no  dockyards  to  depend  on,  they 
were  used  to  turn  engineer  on  occasion.  Captain 
William  .Mugford  received  a  gold  medal  from  the 
American  Philosophical  Society,  for  the  jury  rudder 
he  rigged  on  the  ship  Ulysses.  They  thought  nothing 
of  heaving  down  or  careening  a  vessel  on  some  lonely 
South-Sea  beach,  scrubbing  her  bottom,  paying  her 
seams,  and  making  extensive  repairs,  while  part  of  the 
crew  stood  guard  against  cannibals.  When  Captain 
Penn  Townsend,  by  miscalculation,  found  his  brig 
Eunice  high  and  dry  on  St.  Paul's  Island  (a  favorite 
Salem  resort  in  the  Indian  Ocean),  his  crew  built  a 
huge  wooden  cask  around  her  hull,  and  rolled  her  off. 

Dead  reckoning,  by  compass,  log,  and  dipsey  lead, 
was  the  traditional  New  England  method  of  finding 
one's  position  at  sea.  *  That  was  all  very  well  for  At- 
lantic and  West- India  voyages,  but  not  for  circum- 
navigating the  globe.  The  stately  ship  Massachusetts, 
in  1790,  in  all  her  padded  equipment,  had  no  chro- 
nometer, and  no  officer  who  could  find  longitude  by 
any  other  method.  Consequently  she  missed  Java 
Head,  and  lost  several  weeks'  time.  But  a  Salem  boy 
was  already  planning  a  remedy. 

Nathaniel  Bowditch  2  was  born  at  Salem  in  1773,  the 
son  of  Habakkuk  Bowditch,  a  shipmaster  who  had 
seen  better  days.  His  formal  schooling  was  slight. 
The  dawn  of  Salem's  maritime  expansion  found  him  ap- 
prentice to  a  local  ship-chandler.  He  fed  a  precocious 
passion  for  mathematics  in  the  Philosophical  Library, 

1  All  the  seaport  towns  had  private  schools  of  navigation  in  the  sev- 
enteen-nineties.  Even  at  as  small  a  village  as  Wellfleet,  "We  have  in  the 
winter  a  number  of  private  schools,  by  which  means  the  greater  part  of 
the  young  men  are  taught  the  art  of  navigation,"  writes  the  Reverend 
Levi  Whitman,  of  that  place,  in  1794. 

*  First  syllable  rhymes  with  'how.' 

114 


NATHANIEL  BOWDITCH 


SHIPS  AND  SEAMEN 

the  nucleus  of  which  was  an  Irish  scientist's  collection 
which  a  Beverly  privateer  had  captured  during  the 
Revolution.  In  1796,  he  went  to  sea  as  captain's  clerk 
on  the  ship  Henry,  Salem  to  the  He  de  France,  and  the 
following  year  sailed  as  supercargo  in  the  Astrea,  to 
Manila.  On  this  voyage  he  not  only  spent  every  spare 
moment  in  making  observations,  but  taught  twelve 
members  of  the  crew  to  take  and  work  lunars,  the  only 
method  of  getting  longitude  without  a  chronometer, 
which  no  Salem  vessel  could  afford.  Working  lunars 
is  a  tricky  business,  for  any  error  in  the  observation 
brings  a  thirty-fold  error  in  the  result;  and  as  young 
Bowditch  found  no  less  than  eight  thousand  errors  in 
the  tables  of  the  standard  English  book  on  navigation, 
he  decided  to  get  one  out  of  his  own.  Two  more 
voyages  gave  him  the  practice  and  the  leisure  for  the 
immense  amount  of  detailed  calculations;  and  in  1801 
appeared  the  first  edition  of  Bowditch's  "Practical 
Navigator,"  which  has  been  translated  into  a  dozen 
languages,  passed  through  countless  editions,  and  still 
remains  the  standard  American  treatise  on  navigation. 

While  the  "Navigator"  was  making  a  market  for 
itself,  its  author  went  to  sea,  as  master  of  the  ship 
Putnam,  Beverly  to  the  northwest  coast  of  Sumatra. 
At  the  close  of  this  successful  pepper  voyage,  he  proved 
his  own  theories  by  entering  Salem  Harbor  on  Christ- 
mas Eve,  1803,  in  a  blinding  northeast  snowstorm, 
without  having  picked  up  a  single  landmark.  For 
years  to  come,  "  I  sailed  with  Captain  Bowditch,  Sir!" 
was  a  Salem  man's  password  to  an  officer's  berth. 

Notwithstanding  the  work  of  Bowditch,  it  took  a 
generation  or  more  to  wean  most  Massachusetts  ship- 
masters from  their  dependence  on  dead  reckoning,  in 
which  primitive  method  they  were  adepts.  An  inter- 
esting incident  of  neutral  trading  illustrates  this.  In 


1NIARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

1810,  an  American  vessel  was  seized  at  Christiansand, 
and  condemned  by  the  admiralty  courts  of  Denmark 
(then  at  war  with  England)  on  the  ground  that  her  lack 
of  chart  or  sextant  proved  that  her  voyage  commenced 
in  the  British  Isles.  The  other  American  shipmasters 
in  port  then  drew  up  a  protest  in  which  they  assert, 
"we  have  frequently  made  voyages  from  America 
without  the  above  articles,  and  we  are  fully  persuaded 
that  every  seaman  with  common  nautical  knowledge 
can  do  the  same." 

Captain  Jeremiah  Mayo,  of  Brewster,  about  the 
year  1816,  took  the  brig  Sally  of  Boston,  264  tons,  from 
Denmark  through  the  English  Channel  to  the  Western 
Ocean  in  thick  weather  —  without  an  observation  or 
a  sight  of  land.  Bryant  &  Sturgis  reprimand  one  of 
their  East-India  shipmasters,  in  1823,  for  purchasing 
a  chronometer  for  $250,  and  inform  him  he  must  pay 
for  it  himself.  "Could  we  have  anticipated  that  our 
injunctions  respecting  economy  would  have  been  so 
totally  disregarded  we  would  have  sett  fire  to  the  Ship 
rather  than  have  sent  her  to  sea."  Nathaniel  Silsbee, 
in  1827,  sailed  to  Rotterdam  in  a  brig  that  had  no 
chronometer,  and  whose  officers  knew  nothing  of  lunar 
observations. 

Still  it  was  not  Bowditch's  fault  if  seamen  did  not 
use  the  means  he  offered ;  and  an  increasing  proportion 
of  them  did.  On  his  death,  in  1838,  the  Boston  Marine 
Society  resolved,  "As  astronomer,  a  mathematician 
and  navigator  himself,  a  friend  and  benefactor  has  he 
been  to  the  navigator  and  Seaman,  and  few  can  so 
justly  appreciate  the  excellence  and  utility  of  his  la- 
bours, as  the  members  of  this  Society.  .  . .  His  intui- 
tive mind  sought  and  amassed  knowledge,  to  impart 
it  to  the  world  in  more  easy  forms." 

Boston,  Salem,  and  Newburyport  all  had  their 

116 


SHIPS  AND  SEAMEN 

marine  societies,  open  to  master  mariners  and  some- 
times shipowners  as  well,  before  the  Revolution.  But 
at  Salem  in  1799  there  was  organized  the  East  India 
Marine  Society,  with  membership  restricted  to  Salem 
shipmasters  or  supercargoes,  "who  shall  have  actually 
navigated  the  Seas  near  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  or 
Cape  Horn."  An  exclusive  club,  perhaps;  one  whose 
certificate  of  membership  equaled  a  patent  of  nobility 
in  Essex  County;  but  not  a  small  or  merely  a  social 
club.  Fifty-seven  members  were  admitted  during  the 
first  two  years.  The  Society  furnished  them  with  blank 
duplicate  sea-journals  to  be  filled  out  and  deposited 
in  the  Marine  Library  at  the  close  of  each  voyage. 
Therein  were  faithfully  noted  all  observations  of  lati- 
tude, with  the  position  of  ports,  reefs,  and  headlands, 
as  "the  means  of  procuring  a  valuable  collection  of 
useful  information."  Blank  pages  were  assigned  for 
"remarks  on  the  commerce  of  the  different  places 
touched  at  in  the  voyage  with  the  imports,  exports 
and  manner  of  transacting  business."  In  this  way  the 
community  gathered  strength  from  the  achievements 
of  its  members. 

"Whatever  is  singular  in  the  measures,  customs, 
dress,  ornaments,  &c.  of  any  people,  is  deserving  of 
notice,"  continue  the  directions,  which  conclude  with 
an  injunction  to  note  down  "any  remarkable  books  in 
use,  among  any  of  the  eastern  natives,  with  their  sub- 
jects, dates  and  titles";  and  to  collect  for  the  East 
India  Marine  Museum,  articles  of  dress  and  ornament, 
idols  and  implements  and  all  things  vegetable,  animal, 
and  mineral.  At  their  annual  meetings  the  members, 
each  bearing  some  Oriental  trophy,  passed  in  proces- 
sion through  the  streets,  preceded  by  a  man  "in  Chi- 
nese habits  and  mask,"  and  a  palanquin  borne  by  Sa- 
lem negroes  tricked  out  as  natives  of  India,  bearing  a 

117 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

proud  Salem  youngster  in  the  habiliments  of  a  native 
prince.  To  the  public  spirit  of  her  shipmasters,  Salem 
owes  the  nucleus  of  her  famous  Ethnological  Museum, 
and  records  of  her  early  commerce  unsurpassed  by  any 
American  seaport. 


CHAPTER  IX 

MERCHANTS  AND  MANSIONS 
1782-1812 

DIVITIS  India  usque  ad  ultimum  sinum  (the  spoil  of 
Ind,  to  the  uttermost  gulf)  was  the  appropriate  motto 
on  Salem 's  city  seal.  Wealth,  her  merchants  certainly 
did  acquire.  Elias  Hasket  Derby,  dying  in  1799,  be- 
queathed an  estate  of  a  million  and  a  half  dollars  to 
his  sons.  Israel  Thorndike,  of  Beverly,  and  Captain 
Simon  Forrester,  who  came  to  Salem  a  poor  Irish  lad, 
each  left  about  the  same  sum.  'Billy'  Gray,  when 
Jefferson's  embargo  caught  him,  was  reputed  to  be 
worth  three  million  dollars,  and  known  to  be  the 
greatest  individual  shipowner  in  the  United  States. 
But  more  than  this,  the  Salem  merchants  spent  their 
money  in  a  manner  that  enhanced  the  pleasant  art  of 
living,  and  permanently  enriched  the  artistic  content 
of  America. 

Puritanism,  in  its  religious  and  social  implications, 
stamped  Federalist  Salem.  Puritanism  is  the  reputed 
enemy  of  art  and  genial  living.  Yet  the  people  of 
Massachusetts  Bay,  since  their  first  struggle  for  exist- 
ence on  the  fringe  of  the  continent,  had  built  a  succes- 
sion of  goodly  houses  in  oak  and  pine,  and  even  brick, 
whose  beauty  improved  as  the  sea  yielded  an  increas- 
ing store.  The  spoil,  accumulated  through  twenty 
years'  voyaging  to  the  uttermost  limits  of  the  Far 
East,  produced  at  Salem  the  fairest  flowers  of  Ameri- 
can domestic  architecture. 

The  presiding  genius  of  this  Federal  architecture 
(as  it  should  be  called,  rather  than  the  loose  and  ill- 

119 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

fitting  'Colonial*  or  'Georgian')  was  Samuel  Mc- 
Intire.  Born  at  Salem  in  1757,  the  son  of  a  house- 
wright,  Mclntire  had  as  hard  and  meager  a  boyhood 
as  Bowditch.  Of  his  young  manhood  we  know  little. 
Probably  he  worked  as  a  woodcarver,  and  exercised  his 
talents  not  only  on  houses,  but  on  the  figureheads, 
cabin  mouldings,  and  quick-work  of  vessels.  Suddenly 
in  1782,  the  year  of  peace,  he  blossoms  forth  as  the 
architect  of  the  Fierce-Nichols  house;  with  its  out- 
buildings one  of  the  finest  architectural  groups  ever 
executed  in  wood  in  the  United  States. 

This  house  was  built  for  Jerathmeel  Pierce,  a  mer- 
chant who  saved  enough  out  of  the  Revolution  to  prove 
an  early  success  in  the  East-India  trade.  It  marks  a 
new  type,  the  square,  three-storied,  hip-roofed,  de- 
tached dwelling,  which  stamps  the  Federalist  period  in 
New  England.  Captain  Pierce,  after  a  frugal  fashion  of 
that  day,  had  only  half  the  interior  completed  at  once. 
The  rest  was  fortunately  postponed  until  Mclntire  had 
acquired  a  new  manner;  the  refined  and  delicate  style 
of  interior  decoration  introduced  in  London  by  the 
brothers  Adam.  The  east  parlor  was  completed  in 
1801,  just  in  time  for  the  marriage  of  Sally  Pierce  to 
Captain  George  Nichols. 

This  twenty-three-year-old  shipmaster  had  followed 
the  sea  since  the  age  of  sixteen,  and  had  many  ac- 
quaintances at  London,  St.  Petersburg,  Calcutta,  and 
Batavia.  He  brought  his  bride  from  Bombay,  for  her 
wedding  dress,  the  most  beautiful  piece  of  striped  mus- 
lin ever  seen  in  Salem.  After  four  weeks'  honeymoon 
he  was  off  again  to  Sumatra.  At  the  age  of  twenty- 
nine  he  retired  from  the  sea,  and  lived  long  enough  in 
the  beautiful  house  that  his  father-in-law  built,  to  vote 
twice  for  Abraham  Lincoln. 

For  twenty  years  after  the  building  of  the  Pierce- 

120 


FIERCE-NICHOLS  HOUSE,  SALEM,  AND 
MANTEL  IN  THE  ADAM  PARLOR 


MERCHANTS  AND  MANSIONS 

Nichols  house,  little  notable  construction  was  done  in 
Salem.  A  few  merchants,  like  E.  H.  Derby,  employed 
the  young  architect  to  erect  new  and  splendid  dwellings, 
adorned  by  pilasters  and  surmounted  by  glazed  cupolas 
whence  approaching  sail  might  be  surveyed  in  comfort. 
But  the  greater  number  required  a  prudent  accumula- 
tion, before  deserting  the  ancestral  gambrel.  As  they 
gathered  wealth  and  the  possibility  of  leisure,  the  mer- 
cantile families  shrank  from  the  raw  east  winds,  and 
picturesque  but  embarrassing  contacts  of  the  water- 
front. About  1 80 1,  they  began  to  desert  Derby  Street 
and  its  tributaries  for  Essex  Street,  Washington  Square, 
and  above  all,  Chestnut  Street. 

On  this  broad,  elm-shaded  avenue  —  to-day  the- 
finest  street,  architecturally,  in  New  England  —  Mc- 
Intire  and  his  nameless  fellow-workers  expended  the 
endeavors  of  their  fruitful  years.  The  square,  three- 
storied,  hip-roofed  house,  constructed  of  warm  red 
brick  laid  in  flawless  Flemish  bond,  prevailed.  The 
front  doors  are  framed  in  fanlight  and  sidelights, 
shaded  by  oblong  or  elliptical  porches  whose  roofs  are 
supported  by  attenuated  columns,  their  capitals  carved 
by  the  master  himself.  A  Palladian  window  opens  on 
a  formal  garden  in  the  rear.  The  interiors  are  simply 
arranged,  with  four  rooms  to  a  floor,  and  decorated  in  a 
free  and  original  adaptation  of  the  Adam  style.  Stables, 
barns,  and  garden  houses  are  designed  with  the  same 
care  as  the  mansion,  that  nothing  might  mar  the 
general  effect. 

In  his  public  buildings  —  the  Court  House,  assem- 
bly halls,  and  South  Meeting-House,  Mclntire  was 
equally  successful. 

There  was  little  in  the  architecture  of  these  dwellings, 
save  their  uncompromisingly  square  mass,  to  suggest 
the  character  of  their  occupants.  For  very  few  of  the 

121 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

shipmasters  and  merchants  of  Federalist  Salem  came 
of  wealthy  colonial  families.  They  were  a  rugged  race, 
with  little  of  the  polish  that  marked  contemporary 
society  in  Boston  or  Philadelphia  or  Charleston.  They 
were  self-educated;  for  Salem  then  had  miserable 
schools,  and  no  boy  destined  for  the  sea  went  to  Har- 
vard. They  were  not  ashamed  to  work  with  their  own 
hands  in  garden  or  outlying  farm;  and  in  a  run  of  ill- 
luck,  their  wives  or  sisters  could  without  loss  of  caste 
open  a  little  shop  in  a  front  room  —  as  Hepzibah  in 
' '  The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables. ' '  Their  ways  were  at 
best  bluff  and  simple;  at  worst,  harsh  and  blustering. 
Too  many  carried  the  manners  of  the  quarterdeck 
into  their  Adam  parlors.  One  wonders  where  they 
acquired  the  taste  to  erect  such  dwellings,  or,  if  the 
taste  was  wholly  their  architects' l  to  enrich  them  with 
the  beautiful  furniture,  porcelain,  and  glass  that  are 
still  the  pride  of  Salem.  Everything  made  in  1810  was 
not  good ;  Chestnut  Street  mansions  might  as  well  have 
been  stuffed  with  vulgarized  empire  as  with  chaste 
Chippendale. 

Salem  society,  like  that  of  all  our  seaport  towns,  was 
stratified.  Of  the  life  of  her  middle  and  lower  classes 
we  know  little  save  their  occasional  delinquencies. 
Salem  is  said  to  have  had  a  greater  per  capita  wealth 
than  any  American  town;  but  hard  winters  always 
crowded  the  almshouse  and  demanded  much  charity 
of  the  well-to-do.  All  classes  were  bound  together  by  a 
common  interest  in  maritime  prosperity.  In  1790,  the 
two  hundred  and  twenty-eight  heads  of  families  (includ- 
ing widows)  in  Dr.  Bentley's  East  Church,  included 
thirty-five  mariners,  fifty-eight  master  mariners,  nine 

1  For  the  sort  of  thing  that  the  Salem  architects  avoided,  see  the 
engraving  of  "Mr.  Dorsey's  Gothic  mansion"  at  Philadelphia,  in  Den- 
nie's  Portfolio,  v,  124  (1811). 

122 


MERCHANTS  AND  MANSIONS 

boat-  or  ship-builders,  five  rope-  or  sail-makers,  and 
five  fishermen.  Even  people  whose  principal  occupa- 
tion was  independent  of  commerce,  generally  owned  a 
share  in  a  ship,  or  made  private  adventures.  Nathaniel 
Richardson,  who  owned  the  largest  tannery  in  Essex 
County,  also  owned  four  vessels;  and  his  son  Nathaniel, 
who  "hurried  into  bold  adventures,"  died  in  Malaga 
at  the  age  of  eighteen. 

Unquestioned  social  preeminence  was  enjoyed  by 
the  merchant-shipowners,  who  with  few  exceptions 
had  commanded  vessels  on  East-India  voyages.  Their 
social  life  was  simple  rather  than  brilliant.  Formal 
dinners  were  infrequent,  balls  given  only  by  subscrip- 
tion, at  stated  intervals,  in  Hamilton  Hall  or  Washing- 
ton Hall,  according  as  the  company  was  Federalist 
or  Republican.  For  the  bitter  politics  of  this  period 
divided  Salem  society  by  a  deep  longitudinal  chasm, 
across  which  the  rival  clans  of  Derby  and  Crownin- 
shield  glared  defiance.  Driving  or  sleigh-riding,  with 
Nahant  or  some  good  tavern  for  objective,  was  a  com- 
mon diversion.  But  perhaps  the  favorite  one  for  ship- 
masters' families  was  a  fishing  party  in  the  bay,  followed 
by  landing  on  Baker's  or  Misery  Island  for  a  magnifi- 
cent chowder,  cooked,  as  a  chowder  should  be,  in  iron 
pot  over  driftwood  fire  by  a  Salem  African.  Several 
families  maintained  small  pleasure-boats.  The  finest 
of  them,  George  Crowninshield,  Jr.'s,  thirty-six-foot 
Jefferson,  rigged  like  a  Chebacco  boat,  once  took 
Dr.  Bentley  from  Salem  to  Beverly  harbor  in  fifteen 
minutes  and  back  in  thirty-four.  Wealth  cost  that 
generation  too  much  effort  to  be  frittered  in  riotous 
living  or  wasteful  display.  Those  Salem  families  who 
acquired  a  fortune  in  the  days  when  every  day  brought 
a  ship,  have  with  few  exceptions  retained  their  position 
to  this  day. 

123 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

/ 

Boston   throughout   the   Federalist   period   was  a 

commercial  center  of  about  three  times  the  importance 
of  Salem,  whether  one  takes  population,  tonnage,  or 
customs  duties  as  the  standard  of  comparison.  The 
commercial  activity  of  Boston  Harbor  was  prodigious. 
"Upwards  of  seventy  sail  of  vessels  sailed  from  this 
port  on  Monday  last,  for  various  parts  of  the  world," 
states  the  "  Columbian  Centinel "  on  Wednesday,  Oc- 
tober 26,  1791.  In  1793  there  entered  and  cleared 
eleven  vessels  from  England,  one  hundred  and  nine- 
teen from  the  West  Indies,  and  one  hundred  and  sixty- 
three  from  other  foreign  ports.  "The  harbour  of  Bos- 
ton is  at  this  date  [November,  1794]  crowded  with 
vessels,"  wrote  Thomas  Pemberton.  "  Eighty-four  sail 
have  been  counted  lying  at  two  of  the  wharves  only. 
It  is  reckoned  that  not  less  than  four  hundred  and 
fifty  sail  of  ships,  brigs,  schooners,  sloops  and  small 
craft  are  now  in  this  port."  The  population  increased 
from  18,320  in  1790  to  33,787  in  1810. 

To  take  care  of  this  expanding  commerce  and  popu- 
V  lation,  Boston  began  the  process,  which  still  continues, 
of  making  new  land  by  filling  in  various  coves  that 
gave  her  so  jagged  a  shore-line.  A  corporation  began 
shoveling  the  crest  of  Beacon  Hill  into  the  Mill  Pond, 
near  the  present  North  Station,  about  1807;  and 
another  laid  out  Broad  Street,  somewhat  straight- 
ening the  harbor  front.  Other  companies  financed 
new  wooden  bridges  to  Charlestown,  Cambridge,  and 
South  Boston,  which  opened  up  sections  of  the  town 
never  before  utilized ;  and  before  the  end  of  the  War  of 
1812  work  started  on  the  Mill  Dam,  a  continuation 
of  Beacon  Street  across  the  Back  Bay.  Still,  not  very 
much  was  done  before  1825  to  take  away  the  pictur- 
esque stabs  that  salt  water  made  into  old  Boston.  One 
tongue  of  the  harbor  came  up  to  Liberty  Square;  and 

124 


CHARLES  BULFINCH 


MERCHANTS  AND  MANSIONS 

another  to  Dock  Square,  which  was  the  market  and 
retail  center  of  the  town.  A  few  yards  away  was  State 
Street,  rapidly  becoming  lined  with  the  new  banks  and 
insurance  offices  that  commercial  expansion  required. 
Near  by  was  completed,  in  1808,  the  new  Exchange 
Coffee-House,  whose  seven  stories  proclaimed  Boston 
a  town,  merely  because  she  was  too  proud  to  become  a 
mere  city!  A  Boston  Loyalist  who  returned  for  a  visit 
in  1808,  wrote,  "The  great  number  of  new  and  elegant 
buildings  which  have  been  erected  in  this  Town,  within 
the  last  ten  years,  strike  the  eye  with  astonishment, 
and  prove  the  rapid  manner  in  which  the  people  have 
been  acquiring  wealth."  Boston  was  practically  re- 
built between  1790  and  1815,  in  a  distinctive  style 
of  Federal  architecture  which  the  public  persists  in 
lumping  with  everything  else  built  before  1840  as 
1  colonial.' 

Like  the  merchants  of  Renaissance  Italy,  those  of 
Federalist  Boston  wished  to  perpetuate  their  names  and 
glorify  their  city  by  mansions,  churches,  and  public 
buildings  of  a  new  style  and  magnificence.  Luckily, 
among  their  number  was  a  young  man  who  had  the 
training  and  the  genius  to  guide  this  impulse  into  fruit- 
ful and  worthy  channels.  Charles  Bulfinch,  in  con- 
trast  to  Mclntire,  had  every "  advantage  of  birth, 
wealth,  and  education.  The  son  and  grandson  of  prom- 
inent physicians,  he  graduated  at  Harvard  in  1781,  and 
was  sent  to  France  and  England  for  five  years'  study  of 
architecture.  On  his  return,  in  1786,  he  found  Boston 
more  concerned  in  preserving  its  existing  property 
from  Dan  Shays,  than  ambitious  to  build.  With  un- 
erring instinct,  he  helped  to  launch  the  very  voyage 
whose  consequences  made  his  career.  The  Columbia's 
great  adventure  was  planned  at  his  father's  house,  and 
Charles  Bulfinch  himself  was  one  of  her  owners. 

125 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

The  merchants  were  soon  ready  for  new  houses,  and 
the  cramped  condition  of  Boston  compelled  them  to 
economize  space.  Only  in  "West  Boston"  (Cambridge 
Street)  and  Beacon  Hill  ("out  of  town")  was  it  still 
possible  to  erect  detached  mansions.  Hence  the  first 
important  commission  that  came  to  young  Bulfinch 
was  to  design  the  first  solid  block  of  residences  in  New 
England,  the  Tontine  Crescent  on  Franklin  Place. l 

Crescents  are  common  enough  in  English  cities;  but 
none  had  yet  been  built  when  Bulfinch  sailed  for 
Boston.  He  may  have  seen  a  design  for  one  by  the 
Adam  brothers,  who  taught  him  his  sense  of  propor- 
tion, as  they  inspired  Mclntire's  detail.  Whatever  the 
source,  Bulfinch's  handling  of  the  problem  was  mas- 
terly. Sixteen  three-story  brick  houses  were  built  ac- 
cording to  a  plan  that  showed  uniformity  without  tire- 
some repetition.  The  entrances  were  grouped  by  twos, 
the  end  groups  advanced  six  feet  beyond  the  others, 
and  adorned  by  pilasters.  Instead  of  breaking  the 
crescent  in  its  center,  where  another  street  entered 
Franklin  Place,  Bulfinch  arched  it  over  with  a  library, 
whose  classic  columns,  Venetian  window,  and  attic 
story  pleasantly  broke  the  uniform  line  of  roofs.  The 
middle  of  the  oval  in  front  was  occupied  by  a  grass 
plot  and  trees,  with  a  classic  urn  in  memory  of  Frank- 
lin ;  the  opposite  side  was  filled  with  another  harmoni- 
ous group  of  dwellings,  and  the  approaches  were  given 
distinction  by  Boston's  first  theater,  and  first  Catholic 
cathedral  church,  which  the  young  master  designed. 
The  general  effect  of  Franklin  Place,  as  of  all  the  Bul- 
finch school,  suggests  London  of  the  Regency;  but 
loyal  Bostonians  prefer  to  compare  London  to  Boston 
—  and  the  chronology  bears  them  out! 

Bulfinch  also  designed  a  new  form  of  detached  man- 

1  On  the  site  of  the  curved  portion  of  Franklin  Street. 
126 


MERCHANTS  AND  MANSIONS 

sion  for  the  wide,  elm-shaded  spaces  on  Summer 
Street,  and  for  Beacon  Hill,  where  residences  were 
springing  up  on  the  sunny  slope  of  Copley's  pasture. 
Bulfinch  relieved  the  square  mass  of  Georgian  tradi- 
tion by  a  bow  in  the  center  of  side  or  rear,  making 
place  on  the  ground  story  for  an  elliptical  dining-room. 
The  best  example,  still  extant,  is  the  Governor  Gore 
mansion  at  Waltham.  His  later  city  houses  gained 
light  and  distinction  by  a  double  bow  or  swell  front, 
accentuated  by  pilasters  reaching  to  the  cornice. 

As  architect  of  public  buildings,  from  the  capital 
at  Augusta  to  that  of  Washington,  no  American  save 
Stanford  White  has  ever  surpassed  Bulfinch.  The 
Boston  State  House  (1795),  with  its  gilded  dome,  is 
his  most  famous  early  work;  one  should  visit  the  old 
Representatives',  and  present  Senate  Chamber,  to 
appreciate  the  full  measure  of  his  genius  at  the  age  of 
thirty-two.  In  his  later  work,  like  the  New  South 
Meeting-House  (1814),  and  University  Hall  at  Harvard 
(1815),  he  found  in  hammered  granite  a  fit  medium 
for  his  chaste  lines,  as  a  gray  dress  for  a  Puritan  maiden. 
Most  interesting  of  his  public  works,  from  our  view- 
point, was  the  brick  block  of  thirty-two  stores,  with 
counting-rooms  or  warehouses  overhead,  which  he 
designed  for  the  new  India  Wharf  in  1805,  giving  the 
water-front  an  air  of  solidity  and  permanence  more 
common  to  European  than  American  ports.1  It  was 
the  boldest  bit  of  harbor  development  yet  undertaken 
in  the  United  States.  Sixty  years  later,  Atlantic 
Avenue  ploughed  its  way  through  the  middle  of  India 
Wharf,  disrupting  the  graceful  archway  with  attic 
story  that  broke  the  long  slate  roof.  The  remaining 
portion,  its  red  brick  mellowed  by  the  east  wind,  still 

1  A  part  of  India  Wharf  may  be  seen  at  the  right  of  the  photograph 
of  shipping  in  chapter  xxu. 

127 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

maintains  a  frigate-like  dignity  amid  motor  trucks 
and  excursion  steamers. 

In  repairing  and  enlarging  old  buildings,  like  Christ 
Church  and  Faneuil  Hall,  Bulfinch  showed  a  reverence 
for  the  old  forms,  of  which  his  own  work  seemed  a 
natural  development.  He  and  his  school  gave  Boston 
architecture  a  stamp  of  distinction  that  even  the  imita- 
tors of  Romanesque,  Gothic,  and  French  Renaissance 
have  been  unable  wholly  to  efface.  One  is  tempted 
to  ascribe  his  pure  taste  and  perfect  proportion  to  an 
ocean  origin;  but,  curiously  enough,  land  architecture 
grew  steadily  worse  in  Massachusetts  as  naval  archi- 
tecture reached  perfection  in  the  clipper  ships. 

Boston  society  differed  from  that  of  Salem,  as  the 
graceful  curves  of  Bulfinch's  dining-rooms  and  spiral 
staircases  differ  from  the  straight  lines  of  Mclntire's 
interiors.  Boston  society  was  less  simple,  both  in  its 
manners  and  its  composition ;  and  quite  as  aristocratic 
as  that  of  Philadelphia  or  London.  "The  better  people 
are  all  aristocrats,"  wrote  John  Singleton  Copley,  Jr., 
from  Boston  in  1796.  "  My  father  is  too  rank  a  Jacobin 
to  live  among  them."  Well-to-do  professional  men  like 
Harrison  Gray  Otis,  Federalist  politicians  like  Josiah 
Quincy,  retired  capitalists  like  Christopher  Gore,  and 
wealthy  shopkeepers  like  Samuel  Eliot  and  David 
Sears,  formed  as  conspicuous  a  portion  of  the  social 
upper  crust  as  merchant-shipowners;  and  few  names 
were  included  which  had  risen  to  prominence  since  the 
Revolution.  Social  life  was  formal  and  brilliant,  with 
private  balls  and  cotillion  parties,  and  immense  din- 
ners. Several  merchants  maintained  country  seats  in 
the  neighborhood,  like  their  colonial  forbears ;  but  most 
of  them  found  Boston  a  good  enough  summer  resort. 
Few  traces  of  Puritanism  were  left  among  the  gentry. 
It  was  a  period  of  religious  tolerance,  before  Protestant 

128 


MERCHANTS  AND  MANSIONS 

and  Catholic  had  renewed,  or  Orthodox  and  Unitarian 
begun  their  quarrels.  But  political  feeling  was  ex- 
ceedingly bitter,  and  any  deviation  from  Federalist 
orthodoxy  was  punished  by  social  ostracism.  East- 
India  voyages  seemed  to  mellow  manners,  and  Madeira 
wine;  but  to  sharpen  political  prejudices. 

The  merchants  themselves  did  not  form  a  social 
unit,  as  in  smaller  towns.  Their  portraits  by  Gilbert 
Stuart  have  a  sort  of  family  likeness,  a  complacent  air 
and  ruddy  face  suggesting  a  seafaring  youth,  with  a 
plenty  of  "choice  old  London  particular,"  that  had 
passed  the  equator  four  times  before  its  final  ripening 
under  the  eaves.  Those  who  inherited  wealth,  or  had 
begun  business  before  the  Revolution,  were  more  highly 
regarded  than  the  self-made  man  who  had  traced  new 
trade-routes;  but  certain  families  combined  both  dis- 
tinctions. There  was  a  distinct  class  of  merchant 
princes,  who  lived  in  magnificent  style,  surrounded 
by  suggestions  of  Oriental  opulence.  The  Honorable 
Thomas  Russell  was  a  sort  of  marshal  of  this  mer- 
cantile nobility,  and  passed  on  his  baton  to  Thomas 
Handasyd  Perkins.  On  a  social  pinnacle  of  their  own 
making  were  the  mercantile  emigres  from  Essex 
County  —  the  Lowells,  the  Higginsons,  and  the  Jack- 
sons,  who  (according  to  Colonel  Henry  Lee)  "came 
up  from  Newburyport  to  Boston,  social  and  kindly 
people,  inclined  to  make  acquaintances  and  mingle 
with  the  world  pleasantly.  But  they  got  some  Cabot 
wives,  who  shut  them  up."  Another  distinct  group 
was  composed  of  plain,  hard-working  men,  toilsomely 
accumulating  a  fortune  and  a  name;  men  like  Nathan- 
iel Goddard,  of  a  poor  farmer's  family  of  Brookline, 
who  made  his  first  capital  by  tending  a  lonely  trad- 
ing post  on  Passamaquoddy  Bay;  Josiah  Marshall,  a 
farmer's  boy  from  Billerica,  who  attained  Franklin 

129 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

Place  via  Coast  and  Islands ;  Josiah  Bradlee,  the  most 
extensive  advertiser  in  the  Federal  press,  spending  in 
his  entire  lifetime,  from  1778  to  1860,  but  one  night 
outside  Boston,  and  that  at  Nahant;  a  merchant  of 
whom  it  was  said  that  if  he  sent  a  shingle  afloat  on 
the  ebb  tide  bearing  a  pebble,  it  would  return  on  the 
flood,  freighted  with  a  silver  dollar! 

The  merchant  princes  clung  to  the  ways  and  fashions 
of  colonial  days,  or  of  1790  at  the  latest,  unwilling  to 
admit  even  by  the  cut  of  a  waistcoat  that  Robespierre 
could  change  their  world.  At  eight  or  eight-thirty  the 
well-to-do  Boston  merchant  appeared  among  his  fam- 
ily in  China  silk  dressing-gown  and  cap,  as  Copley  had 
painted  his  father.  Short  family  prayers,  and  a  hearty 
breakfast  by  a  blazing  hickory  fire.  Then  the  mysteries 
of  the  toilet,  performed  by  body  servant  or,  preferably, 
by  a  neighborhood  Figaro,  a  San  Domingo  refugee  who 
discreetly  gossips  while  he  performs  the  rite  of  shav- 
ing. Hair  is  dressed,  tied  in  a  queue,  and  powdered; 
unless  there  is  a  white  wig  to  be  nicely  adjusted.  A 
fresh  white  cravat  with  long  lapels,  is  folded  and  skill- 
fully tied.  Then  for  the  nether  limbs.  Linen  drawers 
are  tied  down,  silk  stockings  pulled  up  smooth,  and  gar- 
tered against  all  chance  of  ungentlemanly  wrinkling; 
buff  nankeen  breeches  arranged  neatly  over  them  and 
silver  buckle  drawn  tight.  Low-hung  waistcoat  and 
broad-skirted  coat  of  light-colored  broadcloth  come 
next.  After  a  few  parting  suggestions  to  his  lady, 
Master  takes  a  stout  gold-headed  Malacca-joint  cane, 
three-cornered  hat,  scarlet  cloak  if  chilly,  and  sallies 
forth  on  foot,  followed  by  Cicero,  the  colored  butler, 
with  huge  market-basket.  For  it  is  the  simple  custom 
of  the  day,  on  one's  way  to  business,  to  choose  the 
materials  for  one's  dinner,  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Faneuil  Hall. 

130 


MERCHANTS  AND  MANSIONS 

Suppose  one  of  those  sharp,  bright  winter  days,  fol- 
lowing a  fresh  snowfall  that  has  etched  the  outlines  of 
new  brick  shops  and  black  old  gabled  houses  with  high 
lights.  Huge  "  pungs  "  (ox-  or  horse-drawn  sledges) ,  the 
connecting  links  between  ocean  commerce  and  New 
England  farms,  are  drawn  up  in  Dock  Square  three 
deep  and  piled  high  with  butter,  cheeses,  fresh  and 
salt  meat,  game,  winter  vegetables,  wooden  ware,  and 
barrels  of  cider  and  perry,  from  some  of  which  small 
boys  are  sucking  through  a  straw  until  the  owner 
shouts — "Hey,  you've  had  your  penny-worth!" 
Through  this  cheerful  activity  strolls  our  merchant, 
and  having  chosen  his  joint  and  poultry  and  game 
and  fixings,  sends  his  servant  home,  and  continues 
to  his  counting-room  on  India  Wharf,  or  near  by. 

If  it  is  winter,  there  is  not  much  to  do;  for  the  larger 
vessels  are  away;  but  there  are  always  accounts  to  be 
made  up,  tea  and  silks  to  be  withdrawn  from  bond,  and 
plans  for  next  season  discussed  with  master  builders. 
At  eleven,  Henry  the  chief  clerk  mixes  a  stiff  jorum  of 
Jamaica  rum,  to  get  himself  and  master  through  the 
morning.  At  half-after  twelve  or  one,  the  business 
day  ends,  save  for  the  genial  institution  of  'Change. 
This  is  a  meeting  of  all  the  merchants,  on  the  sidewalk 
of  State  Street  if  weather  permits,  otherwise  in  tavern 
or  insurance  office,  to  talk  shop,  ships,  and  politics 
for  a  half-hour  or  so. 

By  two  o'clock  the  merchant  is  at  home  again,  and 
at  two-thirty  comes  dinner.  Perhaps  it  is  a  formal 
feast,  in  the  oval  dining-room,  with  some  fellow-mer- 
chants, a  state  senator  or  two,  a  judge,  and  their  re- 
spective ladies;  begun  by  a  hot  punch  handed  to  the 
gentlemen  in  a  China  loving-cup;  continued  through 
several  substantial  courses,  washed  down  with  sherry, 
madeira,  and  (rarely)  champagne ;  prolonged  into  can- 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

dlelight  after  the  ladies  retire  and  the  cloth  is  removed, 
by  port,  brandy,  political  gossip,  and  damning  the 
Jacobins.  If  an  ordinary  family  dinner,  it  is  followed 
by  a  sleigh-ride,  or,  in  long  summer  days,  a  family 
drive  in  coach  or  high  English  phaeton,  behind  fat 
bays,  to  take  tea  and  fruit  at  some  country  seat  — 
with  Harry  Otis  at  Oakley,  or  Kitty  Gore  at  Waltham, 
or  John  Lowell  at  Roxbury,  or  Ben  Bussey  at  Jamaica 
Plain.  A  ball  or  evening  supper  party,  perhaps;  other- 
wise a  cold  supper  and  glass  of  madeira  at  home,  '  and 
so  to  bed.' 

Federalist  Boston  was  full  of  small  gentlemen's 
clubs,  which  met  at  each  others'  houses  or  at  taverns, 
for  evening  talk  and  cheer.  Several  of  them  were  fire 
societies,  each  member  maintaining  a  pair  of  leathern 
buckets,  a  canvas  bag  for  saving  valuables,  and  a  bed 
key ;  which  articles  had  to  be  solemnly  inspected  every 
so  often,  as  an  excuse  for  a  party.  In  addition,  there 
were  large  public  dinners,  followed  by  formal  toasts, 
accompanied  by  music,  and  (on  the  Fourth)  discharges 
of  artillery  —  such  as  the  annual  feast  of  shells  on 
Forefathers'  Day,  the  festivities  of  election  week,  and 
the  annual  dinner  of  the  Boston  Marine  Society.  The 
meetings  of  this  society  were  common  ground  where  all 
Bostonians  interested  in  seaborne  commerce  met.  The 
secretary  describes  it  in  1811  as  "composed  of  upwards 
of  one  hundred  former  shipmasters  who  have  retired 
from  sea  with  adequate  fortunes,  many  of  whom  are 
largely  interested  in  the  insurance  offices  and  as  under- 
writers, and  about  fifty  of  the  most  respectable  mer- 
chants and  shipowners  and  gentlemen  of  the  highest 
stations  in  the  commonwealth.  The  rest  of  the  Soci- 
ety is  composed  of  the  more  active  and  younger  mari- 
ners who  still  follow  the  seas  as  a  professional  business." 
These  last  were  the  men  who  made  the  name  of  Bos- 

132 


Copyright,  1903,  by  the  Trustees  of  the  Jloston  Atlienxun 

JAMES  PERKINS 


MERCHANTS  AND  MANSIONS 

ton  famous  from  Archangel  to  Smyrna,  and  east  by 
west  to  the  River  Plate  and  Calcutta.  Too  busy,  as 
yet,  to  care  for  social  life  or  Bulfinch  mansions,  the 
next  generation  was  their  harvest  season. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  SACRED  CODFISH 
1784-1812 

ON  March  17,  1784,  Mr.  John  Rowe,  of  Boston,  mer- 
chant, arose  from  his  seat  in  the  Representatives'  Hall 
of  the  Old  State  House,  and  offered  a  motion,  "That 
leave  might  be  given  to  hang  up  the  representation 
of  a  Codfish  in  the  room  where  the  House  sit,  as  a 
memorial  of  the  importance  of  the  Cod-Fishery  to  the 
welfare  of  this  Commonwealth,  as  had  been  usual 
formerly."  Leave  was  accordingly  granted;  and  the 
same  wooden  emblem  presented  by  genial  Johnny 
Rowe,  having  followed  the  Great  and  General  Court  to 
Beacon  Hill,  still  faces  the  Speaker's  desk. 

Massachusetts  still  retains  her  supremacy  in  the 
American  codfisheries;  but  in  1790  this  industry  was 
in  the  parlous  state  that  the  war  had  left  it.  Relief 
came  quickly  from  the  federal  government.  On  July  4, 
1789,  Congress  granted  a  bounty  of  five  cents  on  every 
quintal  of  dried  fish  or  barrel  of  pickled  fish  exported. 
Elbridge  Gerry,  of  Marblehead,  and  Benjamin  Good- 
hue,  of  Salem,  had  a  good  deal  to  do  with  obtaining  this 
favor;  but  there  was  no  opposition  from  other  parts  of 
the  country.  Charles  Cotesworth  Pinckney,  of  South 
Carolina,  in  the  debates  of  the  ratifying  convention 
in  his  state,  had  generously  urged  the  distress  of  the 
New  England  fisheries  as  a  reason  for  closer  union. 
In  1791,  the  General  Court  of  Massachusetts  begged 
additional  protection.  Thomas  Jefferson,  Secretary 
of  State,  issued  a  friendly  but  rather  non-committal 
report ;  but  Senator  George  Cabot,  formerly  the  owner 

134 


THE  SACRED  CODFISH 

of  Beverly  fishermen,  framed  and  put  through  the  act 
of  February  9,  1792,  granting  a  bounty  of  one  dollar 
to  two  dollars  and  a  half  per  ton  (depending  on  the 
size)  to  vessels  engaged  in  the  codfishery  four  months 
in  the  year;  three-eighths  of  the  bounty  to  go  to  the 
owner,  the  rest  to  be  divided  among  the  crew. 

Under  the  influence  of  federal  bounties,  and  the 
general  expansion  of  commerce  in  the  late  eighteenth 
century,  the  Massachusetts  codfishery  began  to  look 
up  again.  The  tonnage  of  her  fishing  fleet  (including 
that  of  Maine)  gradually  increased  from  about  10,000 
in  1790  to  62,000  in  1807,  when  Jefferson's  embargo 
brought  another  check. 

The  Grand  Banks  of  Newfoundland  fisheries  were 
renewed  in  what  was  left  of  the  pre-Revolutionary 
fleet  —  old-fashioned  barrel-bottomed  schooners  of 
not  over  seventy  tons,  called  "heel-tappers"  on  ac- 
count of  their  low  waists  and  high  quarterdecks.1 
Fishermen,  the  most  conservative  of  seafarers,  seem 
to  have  made  no  improvement  in  their  models  until 
after  1815.  Methods  were  unchanged.  Bankers  made 
two  or  three  fishing  trips  a  year.  The  spring  fare  was 
either  brought  home  in  time  for  election  day  (the  last 
Wednesday  in  May),  or  dried  on  "any  of  the  unsettled 
bays,  harbors  and  creeks  of  Nova  Scotia,  Magdalen 
Islands  and  Labrador,"  as  Article  III  of  the  Treaty 
of  Peace  (thanks  to  John  Adams)  permitted,  but  most 
of  the  curing  was  done  on  the  sands  or  ledges  of  the 
home  port. 

The  only  innovation  of  the  Federalist  period  was  a 
wider  range.  The  "Bay"  (of  Chaleur)  and  Labrador 
shore  fisheries,  secured  in  the  same  treaty,  were  first 

1  One  of  these  tubby  schooners  is  depicted  in  the  foreground  of  the 
Salem  Marine  Society  Certificate,  in  chapter  vn.  The  old  fireboard  op- 
posite shows  two  of  them  at  anchor  in  Marblehead  Harbor. 

135 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

visited  shortly  after  the  war,  and  immediately  became 
popular.  Almost  a  thousand  sail  passed  through  the 
Strait  of  Canso  in  1807,  outward  bound  — 

Where  Anticosti  lies 
Like  a  fell  spider  in  its  web  of  fog, . . . 
And  frost-rimmed  bays  and  trading  stations  seem 
Familiar  as  Great  Neck  and  Kettle  Cove, 
Nubble  and  Boon,  the  common  names  of  home. 

On  Sundays,  the  New  England  fishermen  "swarmed 
like  flies"  on  the  shore  of  the  Gulf  of  St.  Lawrence,  said 
a  British  observer,  whose  reports  were  largely  responsi- 
ble for  his  government's  efforts  to  restrict  these  grounds 
in  the  negotiations  at  Ghent.  By  1808,  three-quarters 
of  the  dried  fish  exported  from  Massachusetts  came 
from  the  Bay  and  Labrador  coast ;  less  than  one-quar- 
ter from  the  Grand  Banks,  which  required  larger  ves- 
sels and  more  expensive  outfits.  The  Bank  fishermen, 
however,  were  able  to  export  their  own  fares,  when 
cured,  to  France,  Spain,  Portugal,  or  the  West  Indies 
in  the  winter  season. 

Encouragement  of  the  New  England  fisheries  was 
often  justified  on  the  ground  that  they  contributed 
both  men  and  vessels  to  the  navy  and  merchant  ma- 
rine. In  time  of  war,  when  unarmed  Bankers  would  fall 
certain  prey  to  the  enemy,  their  crews  perforce  enlisted 
in  the  navy  or  on  a  privateer.  But  on  the  merchant 
marine  their  influence  was  slight,  except  in  so  far  as 
their  produce  furnished  freight  and  a  medium  for  trade. 
The  more  ambitious  youths  of  fishing  towns  entered 
the  merchant  marine  —  Captain  Cressy,  for  instance, 
of  the  Flying  Cloud  clipper,  was  a  Marblehead  boy. 
But  notwithstanding  popular  belief  and  congressional 
oratory,  ex-fishermen  were  seldom  found  among  the 
crews  of  deep-sea  merchantmen,  at  any  period  of  our 

136 


THE  SACRED  CODFISH 

history.1  "They  make  troublesome  merchantmen," 
writes  Bentley  of  the  Marblehead  fishermen  in  1816. 
"  But  no  men  are  equal  to  them  in  the  things  they  know 
how  to  do  from  habit." 

Fishing  was  a  specialized  form  of  maritime  enter- 
prise. The  small  amount  of  capital  required,  the  short 
voyages  (enabling  a  man  to  live  at  home  with  his 
family  at  least  half  the  year),  and  the  share  system  of 
rewarding  crews,  appealed  to  a  class  of  men  who  could 
not  afford  the  expense  of  mercantile  ventures,  and  would 
not  submit  to  the  wage  system,  the  discipline,  and  the 
lengthy  voyages  of  merchant  vessels.  The  Yankee  liked 
fishing  '  on  his  own  hook '  —  the  phrase  originated 
here,  before  the  Revolution,  to  describe  a  system  in 
which  each  member  of  the  crew  supplied  his  own  gear, 
bedding,  and  food.  Fishermen  had  their  own  customs 
and  costumes,2  types  and  traditions  which  were  handed 
down  from  generation  to  generation. 

A  fisherman's  son  was  predestined  to  the  sea.  As 
soon  as  he  could  walk,  he  swarmed  over  every  Banker 
or  Chebacco  boat  that  came  into  port,  began  'hand- 
lining'  for  cunners  off  wharves  and  ledges,  and  begging 
older  boys  to  teach  him  to  row.  At  six  he  was  already 
some  aid  in  curing  the  catch,  and  he  helped  his  mother 
with  the  household  work,  in  order  to  qualify  as  sea- 
cook.  Boys  of  nine  to  twelve  years  did  the  cooking  in 
Marblehead  and  Gloucester  fishermen  at  this  period, 

1  R.  B.  Forbes  is  most  emphatic  on  this  point.  Captain  Arthur  H. 
Clark  backs  him  up.  The  author  of  The  Mate  and  his  Duties  (Liver- 
pool* 1855),  p.  24,  states,  "It  is  in  general  much  easier  to  make  a  good 
sailor  out  of  a  landsman  than  a  fisherman."  Fishermen  were  not  used  to 
discipline  or  to  quick  movements,  and  were  apt  to  shy  at  laying  out  on 
yardarms. 

*  The  New  England  fisherman's  costume,  until  about  1830,  when 
oilskins  were  adopted,  was  a  sheep-  or  goat-skin  jacket,  and  'barvel' 
(leather  apron),  baggy  calfskin  trousers,  yellow  cowhide  "churn  boots," 
and  tarred  canvas  hat,  shaped  like  the  modern  sou'wester. 

137 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

and  on  Cape-Codders  even  later.  After  a  voyage  or  two 
he  handed  over  his  cooking  utensils  —  a  single  iron 
pot  and  long  spoon  —  to  a  younger  brother  or  cousin, 
became  an  apprentice,  learned  the  secrets  of  luring 
codfish  to  hook,  and  the  art  of  heading,  splitting,  and 
salting  with  quick  precision.  A  strong  boy  of  fifteen  or 
sixteen  might  be  as  accomplished  a  fisherman  as  any; 
a  'high-liner'  of  the  fleet.  To  save  enough  to  acquire 
a  fishing  vessel,  and  live  ashore  on  her  earnings,  was 
his  highest  ambition.  Otherwise  he  grew  gray  in  the 
service  of  the  sea.  When  rheumatic  arms  could  no 
longer  haul  on  sheet  or  cable,  and  eyes  grew  dim  from 
straining  through  night,  fog,  and  easterlies,  he  retired 
from  deep  waters,  and  puttered  about  with  lobstering, 
shore  fishing,  or  clam-digging. 

Marblehead,  a  scant  three  miles  from  Salem,  was 
as  different  in  its  appearance,  its  commerce,  and  the 
character  of  its  people,  as  if  it  lay  overseas.  Built  on 
ground  so  hilly  and  boulder-strewn  that  there  seemed 
hardly  place  for  the  weather-beaten  houses;  peopled  by 
descendants  of  the  peculiar  old  stock ;  the  harbor  open 
to  northeast  gales,  which  sent  in  great  wicked  rollers 
that  tore  up  the  stoutest  ground  tackle;  Marblehead 
yet  remained  the  premier  fishing  port  of  Massachu- 
setts. 

Few  seaport  towns  in  America  had  lost  more  by 
the  Revolution.  Before  the  war,  Marblehead  had 
rivaled  Salem  in  population  and  foreign  commerce. 
But  'King'  Hooper  and  Benjamin  Marston  had  be- 
come tories,  and  the  elder  Ornes,  Lees,  Pedricks,  and 
Gerrys  had  died  or  removed  to  more  prosperous  cen- 
ters. Their  sons  remained  (for  this  being  Marblehead 
the  ordinary  laws  of  emigration  did  not  hold) ;  but  they 
had  no  capital  to  renew  the  foreign  trade;  and  indeed 
it  would  have  been  useless  to  compete  with  Salem. 

138 


A 


MARBLEHEAD  FIREBOARD,  REPRESENTING  TWO    HEEL-TAPPER 

FISHING  SCHOONERS  COMING  TO  ANCHOR 

INSIDE  THE  NECK,  ABOUT  l8OO 


A  TOPSAIL  SCHOONER  OF  MARBLEHEAD  IN  FOREIGN  TRADE,  1796 


THE  SACRED  CODFISH 

There  was  nothing  left  but  the  fisheries,  and  even  they 
were  at  the  lowest  ebb.  Average  gross  earnings  per 
vessel  had  fallen  frqm  $483  in  1787  to  $273  in  1789. 
There  were  459  widows  and  865  orphans,  mostly  de- 
pendent for  support  on  the  taxpayers,  in  this  town  of 
5500  people.  Houses  and  fish  sheds  were  tumbling  to 
pieces,  and  the  sea  threatened  to  make  a  clean  breach 
through  the  Neck  and  ruin  the  harbor. 

Marblehead  stiffened  her  back,  organized  a  lottery 
to  relieve  the  poor,  founded  an  academy  in  time  to  fit 
Joseph  Story  for  college,  acquired  a  bank  and  insur- 
ance company,  and  was  rewarded  with  a  partial  return 
of  prosperity.  Her  fishing  schooners  were  the  largest 
and  best  of  the  New  England  fleet.  With  the  aid  of 
small  brigantines  and  topsail  schooners  like  the  Raven, 
their  local  catch  was  exported  to  France,  Spain,  and 
the  West  Indies,  where  high  prices  prevailed.  "We 
got  about  one  dollar  for  every  fish  we  carried  out"  to 
Bilbao,  one  voyage,  remembered  an  old  fisherman. « 

When  the  Napoleonic  wars  raised  freights  to  un- 
heard-of figures,  the  Marblehead  schooners  and  brig- 
antines from  seventy-five  to  one  hundred  and  fifty  tons 
burthen  found  it  profitable  to  engage  in  the  carrying 
trade.  In  1 792,  Marblehead  had  only  three  entries  from 
Europe;  in  1805,  the  old  impost  book  at  the  custom 
house  records  sixteen  entries  from  Bilbao,  one  from 
Lisbon,  four  from  Bordeaux,  three  from  Nantes,  one 
from  La  Rochelle,  one  from  Alicante,  two  from  Tonning 
(Holstein),  one  from  St.  Petersburg,  and  eight,  with 
salt,  from  the  Cape  Verde  Islands.  In  addition,  there 
were  the  same  year  ten  entries  from  Martinique,  three 
from  Havana,  and  one  each  from  Guadeloupe  and 
Dominica.  In  1806,  Marblehead  had  her  first  entry 
from  the  East  Indies;  the  brigantine  Orient  (187  tons), 
Edmund  Bray  master,  from  Calcutta,  with  cottons, 

139 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

gunny  bags,  ginger,  sugar,  segars,  bandannas,  carpets, 
cords  and  blinds  for  Robert  Hooper  and  several  others. 
The  customs  duties  annually  collected  at  this  little 
port  rose  from  $22,300  in  1801  to  $156,000  in  1807, 
when  her  fleet  had  a  tonnage  of  21,068;  more  than 
half  that  of  Salem,  but  less  than  Newburyport  or  New 
Bedford. 

Notwithstanding  these  impressive  figures,1  Marble- 
head  never  recovered  her  provincial  affluence.  Her 
newly  won  wealth  went  mostly  to  swell  Salem  and 
Boston  fortunes.  Her  fishermen,  less  thrifty  than  the 
Puritan  stock  of  Beverly  and  Cape  Cod,  frolicked 
away  every  winter  the  remembrance  of  their  summer 
toils,  and  kept  in  debt  to  the  vessel  owners.  Her  popu- 
lation increased  only  by  239  souls  from  1790  to  1810, 
which  means,  in  view  of  the  notoriously  large  families 
of  Marblehead  fishermen,  that  considerable  emigration 
took  place. 

Jefferson's  embargo  achieved  the  ruin  of  Marblehead 
as  the  first  fishing  port  of  New  England ;  and  the  War 
of  1812  found  her  much  as  the  Revolution  had  left 
her,  poor  but  proud,  sullen  but  excitable.  Happy  the 
visiting  'furriner'  from  Salem,  Lynn,  or  Boston,  who 
escaped  a  'squaeling'  from  her  'ragged  urchins!'2 
In  1808  occurred  the  regrettable  incident  of  Skipper 
Benjamin  (not  Floyd)  Ireson,  for  his  crew's  cowardice 
and  lying  (not  for  his  hard  heart),  tarred  and  feathered 
and  carried  in  a  dory  (not  cart)  by  the  fishermen  (not 

1  Due  partly  to  Oriental  imports  in  Boston  vessels,  consigned  to 
Boston  and  other  outside  merchants.  One  such  cargo,  in  the  ship  Liver- 
pool Packet,  W.  T.  Magee  master,  from  Canton,  consigned  to  George 
W.  Lyman  and  James  Morgan,  paid  over  $72,500  duties  in  1811. 

8  'Squaeling,' in  Marblehead  dialect,  meant  hurling  a  stone,  or  other 
hard  object.  "  I  don't  remember  any  one  being  squaeled,"  said  an  old 
lady  of  Marblehead  to  a  friend  of  mine  not  many  years  ago  —  "unless 
't  were  a  Lynn  man!"  she  added,  thoughtfully. 

I4O 


THE  SACRED  CODFISH 

the  women)  of  Marblehead.  Mr.  Roads  told  the  facts 
in  his  history,  and  Mr.  Whittier  acknowledged,  "I 
have  no  doubt  that  thy  version  of  Skipper  Ireson's 
ride  is  the  correct  one." 

T'other  side  Salem  from  Marblehead,  not  fifteen 
minutes'  ride  across  Essex  Bridge  (completed  in  1788  at 
the  colossal  cost  of  sixteen  thousand  dollars),  was  the 
ancient  town  of  Beverly.  Here  were  the  stately  homes 
of  the  Cabots,  Lees,  and  Thorndikes,  who,  in  combina- 
tion with  the  clever  lawyers  of  Newburyport,  the  ora- 
tors of  Boston,  and  the  tea  barons  of  Salem,  controlled 
Massachusetts  politics  for  the  coming  generation. 
History  has  not  been  kind  to  Beverly.  After  teaching 
Boston  how  to  bake  beans,  the  metropolis  usurped  the 
credit.  After  showing  Salem  how  to  fish  and  privateer, 
the  larger  port  absorbed  her  neighbor  in  1789  as  a  place 
of  entry  and  registry.  But  the  records  of  the  state 
custom  house,  during  the  'critical  period,'  throw  light 
on  her  commercial  economy.  Apart  from  the  operations 
of  her  distinguished  triumvirate,  Beverly  was  a  fishing 
port,  and  the  only  fishing  port  which  by  1790  had  in- 
creased her  catch  and  tonnage  over  pre-Revolutionary 
figures.  In  1785,  she  was  the  proud  possessor  of  thirty 
schooners  and  a  sloop,  from  twenty  to  fifty  tons  bur- 
then, including  two  Pollys  two  Larks,  three  Betsys, 
three  Swallows,  a  Two  Friends,  a  Three  Friends,  a  Three 
Brothers,  an  Industry,  a  Cicero,  and  a  Hannah.  Every 
summer  they  made  from  two  to  four  fares  of  fish,  and 
every  winter  traded  with  the  South  and  the  West 
Indies,  and  the  Cape  Verde  Islands.  Within  ten  years 
Beverly's  tonnage  had  doubled.  Dr.  Dwight,  of  Yale, 
judged  her  fishermen  "  distinguished  for  good  order, 
industry,  sober  manners,  and  sound  morals."  The 
records  of  the  Beverly  Farms  Social  Library,  organized 
in  1806,  bear  him  out;  for  we  find  that  Skipper  Charles 

141 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

Dodge  took  to  sea  with  him  Bishop  Gardiner's  'Life,' 
Henry's  'Meditations,'  and  Baxter's  'Saints'  Rest'; 
while  Skipper  Gamaliel  Ober,  for  light  summer  read- 
ing on  the  Grand  Banks,  chose  Jonathan  Edwards  on 
'  Religious  Affections,'  the  third  volume  of  Josephus, 
and  Drelincourt  on  '  Death.' 

Whilst  Marblehead  reverted  from  trading  to  fishing, 
and  back  again,  Gloucester  declined  as  a  fishing  port, 
but  revived  her  foreign  trade.  In  1790,  she  already 
owned  four  ships,  nine  brigs,  and  twenty-three  schoon- 
ers, beside  fishing  vessels.  Gloucester's  specialty  was 
a  commerce  in  fish  and  molasses  with  Surinam.  Why 
Gloucester  should  have  gotten  a  grip  on  this  trade, 
which  was  common  to  all  the  fishing  ports  in  colonial 
days,  is  a  mystery ;  but  certain  it  is  that  until  well  on  in 
the  nineteenth  century,  Gloucester  vessels  were  better 
known  in  Dutch  Guiana  than  those  of  any  other  North 
American  port.  The  wealthier  merchant  families  of 
Gloucester  Harbor — Sargents  and  Parsons  and  Pearces 
—  aspired  to  higher  things.  They  formed  an  asso- 
ciation to  carry  on  the  East-India  trade  in  the  ship 
Winthrop  and  Mary,  but  the  total  loss  of  this  vessel  on 
her  homeward  passage  from  Sumatra  in  1800  ended 
the  experiment.  Nevertheless,  Gloucester  was  a  thriv- 
ing and  prosperous  town  in  the  Federalist  period,  boast- 
ing a  bank  with  a  vault  carved  out  of  solid  rock,  a 
schoolhouse  with  cupola,  and  a  two-story  "artillery 
house"  or  armory,  with  four  field  pieces  and  a  bell  pro- 
cured from  Denmark.  "They  excell  in  their  parties, 
their  clubs,  and  also  in  their  military  parades,"  wrote 
Dr.  Bentley,  after  being  entertained  by  the  Gloucester 
people  in  1799. 

Inability  to  man  her  Bankers,  owing  to  the  popular- 
ity of  the  Bay,  Labrador,  and  offshore  fisheries,  was 
responsible  for  Gloucester's  temporary  decline  as  a 

142 


THE  SACRED  CODFISH 

fishing  port.  These  minor  fisheries  were  the  specialty 
of  Gallop's,  Folly,  Pigeon,  Long,  and  Loblolly  coves 
on  Sandy  Bay  and  the  north  side  of  Cape  Ann.1  They 
were  prosecuted  not  in  Bankers  of  a  size  requiring  capi- 
talist backing,  but  in  smaller  boats,  which  the  fisher- 
men themselves  could  build  and  own  on  shares.  The 
typical  Cape  Ann  fishing  vessel  of  the  Federalist  period 
was  a  Chebacco  boat  (ancestor  of  the  Down  East 
'pinkies'  of  to-day) — so  called  from  the  Chebacco 
Parish  of  Ipswich  where  the  type  was  invented  and 
built.  Double-ended,  'pink*  (sharp)  sterned,  rigged 
with  two  pole  masts,  stepped  well  forward  so  that 
no  headsail  was  needed,  and  not  over  thirty  feet  long, 
the  Chebacco  boats  were  easy  to  handle  and  rode 
the  waves  like  a  duck.  They  were  seaworthy  enough 
for  a  Labrador  voyage,  but  for  the  most  part  sought 
cod,  haddock,  or  pollock  on  the  banks  and  submerged 
ledges  along  the  Maine  coast,  or  within  a  hundred 
miles  of  Eastern  Point  —  Old  Man's  Pasture,  Matinicus 
Sou'  Sou'  West,  Spot  o'  Rocks,  Saturday  Night  Ledge, 
Kettle  Bottom,  Cashe's  Ledge,  and  the  Fippennies. 
In  1792,  Cape  Ann  owned  one  hundred  and  thirty- 
three  Chebacco  boats  of  eleven  tons  burthen  on  an 
average;  and  by  1804  the  number  had  increased  to 
two  hundred  and  the  tonnage  doubled. 

Yet  the  Cape  Ann  fishermen  were  as  a  class  miser- 
ably poor,  and  generally  in  debt  to  some  storekeeper 
at  Gloucester  Harbor.  The  picturesque  coves  where 
their  tiny  cottages  clustered,  afforded  poor  anchor- 
age and  protection.  At  any  sign  of  a  northeast  storm 
every  Chebacco  boat  had  to  leave  its  tree-root  moor- 

1  These  villages  were  all  in  the  township  of  Gloucester,  until  1840, 
when  some  of  them  were  set  off  as  the  town  of  Rockport.  Gloucester 
village,  now  the  city,  was  called  "The  Harbor,"  to  distinguish  it  from 
other  villages  in  the  township. 

143 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

ing,  and  slip  around  Cape  Ann,  to  the  protection  of 
Gloucester  Harbor. 

Chebacco  (incorporated  as  a  town  of  Essex  in  1819) 
owned  a  fleet  of  about  forty  local  boats.  At  Ipswich,  up 
a  narrow,  winding  river  where  nothing  larger  than  a 
motor  boat  ventures  nowadays,  the  Parleys,  Tread- 
wells,  Lakemans,  and  others  owned  a  fleet  of  Bankers, 
Bay  fishermen,  and  West-Indiamen.  In  ascending  the 
river,  they  had  to  be  warped  around  Nabby's  Point  by 
cables  bent  onto  iron  rings  set  in  the  rocks.  Ipswich, 
in  spite  of  her  lace  industry  and  fishing  fleet,  was 
somewhat  of  a  decayed  town  during  the  Federalist 
period;  an  example  of  what  Salem  would  have  been 
without  the  East-India  trade. 

Reserving  Newburyport  for  another  chapter,  let 
us  coast  by  the  fishing  ports  south  of  Boston.  The 
South  Shore  was  at  a  standstill  during  the  Federalist 
period;  but  whatever  life  it  had  came  from  fishing. 
Cohasset  with  but  817  inhabitants  in  1790,  barely 
passed  the  thousand  mark  in  1820.  Scituate  increased 
by  less  than  three  hundred  between  1776  and  1810. 
"The  whole  region,"  observed  Dr.  Dwight,  "wears  re- 
markably the  appearance  of  stillness  and  retirement; 
and  the  inhabitants  seem  to  be  separated,  in  a  great 
measure,  from  all  active  intercourse  with  their  coun- 
try." But  Dr.  Dwight  did  not  visit  the  active  ship- 
yards on  the  upper  North  River.  Plymouth  Bay  was 
slightly  more  progressive;  but  the  combined  popula- 
tion of  Duxbury,  Kingston,  and  Plymouth,  including 
considerable  farming  country,  hardly  exceeded  that  of 
Marblehead  or  Gloucester  in  1800,  and  "about  half 
the  inhabitants  live  by  husbandry."  Their  fleet  was 
almost  annihilated  by  the  Revolution.  Before  the 
war,  these  towns  marketed  their  catch  at  the  West 
Indies  or  through  Boston,  but  about  1790  a  Plymouth 

144 


I 


tf 


THE  SACRED  CODFISH 

merchant  opened  an  export  trade  to  the  Mediterra- 
nean. Plymouth  Bay  then  built  up  a  considerable  fleet 
—  sixty-two  schooners  of  thirty-eight  to  one  hundred 
and  thirty-six  tons  burthen  by  1807.  Two  of  them 
belonged  to  Joshua  Winsor,  of  Duxbury,  whose  house, 
warehouse,  wharf,  and  other  possessions  are  shown  in 
the  attached  illustration,  the  work  of  some  itinerant 
painter.  Fish-flakes  of  the  ancient  pattern  —  woven 
platforms  of  alder  branches,  on  posts  about  thirty 
inches  above  the  ground  —  lined  the  shores  for  two 
miles  either  side  of  Plymouth  Rock.  And  as  a  neutral 
trading  port,  Plymouth  Bay  was  not  far  behind 
Marblehead.1 

Cape  Cod,  which  had  never  permitted  the  war  to 
shake  its  thrift  and  frugality,  recovered  a  modest 
prosperity  through  a  combination  of  fishing  and  salt- 
making.  This  latter  industry  began  at  Dennis  early 
in  the  Revolution,  when  the  British  fleet  cut  off 
our  supply  of  salt  —  a  necessity  for  curing  fish,  and 
preserving  meat  in  pre-cold-storage  days.  After  the 
war,  it  was  necessary  to  cheapen  the  process  in  order 
to  compete  with  imports.  One  Cape-Codder  har- 
nessed the  wind,  to  save  pumping;  and  another  har- 
nessed the  sun,  with  an  ingenious  arrangement  of 
wooden  vats  and  sliding  covers,  to  save  fuel.  By  1800 
there  were  one  hundred  and  thirty-six  salt-works  be- 
tween Sandwich  and  Provincetown,  yielding  twenty- 
five  to  thirty-three  per  cent  profit  from  their  sales  of 
marine  and  Glauber  salts,  despite  the  heavy  imports 
from  Maia,  Lisbon,  and  Turks  Island.  Dr.  Dwight 
in  his  travels  was  impressed  by  the  ''tidy,  comfortable 
appearance"  of  the  Cape  Cod  cottages,  and  with  the 
surprisingly  fruitful  yield  of  Cape  Cod  agriculture. 
Barnstable,  for  instance,  exported  about  fifteen  thou- 
1  See  below,  chapter  xn. 
145 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

sand  bushels  of  flax  annually.  "But  husbandry  is 
pursued  with  little  spirit,"  wrote  the  minister  of 
Chatham;  "the  people  in  general  passing  the  flower  of 
their  lives  at  sea,  which  they  do  not  quit  till  they  are 
fifty  years  of  age,  leaving  at  home  none  but  the  old  men 
and  small  boys  to  cultivate  the  ground."  In  Wood's 
Hole,  Barnstable,  and  other  harbors  vessels  were 
fitted  for  combination  fishing  and  whaling  voyages, 
sailing  to  the  Gulf  of  St.  Lawrence  prepared  to  catch 
anything  from  a  herring  to  a  Greenland  whale.  The 
population  of  Cape  Cod  increased  from  seventeen 
thousand  in  1790  to  twenty-two  thousand  in  1810;  and 
the  fishing  fleet  in  proportion.  But  Provincetown,  in 
1810,  still  had  less  than  one  thousand  inhabitants;  and 
Cape  civilization  did  not  reach  full  bloom  for  another 
generation. 

Going  fishing  or  to  sea  was  looked  forward  to  by 
every  Cape  Cod  boy.  Elijah  Cobb,  later  an  eminent 
Brewster  shipmaster,  embarked  at  Namskaket  on  the 
packet-schooner  Creture  in  1783,  to  seek  his  fortune  at 
Boston,  paying  his  passage  with  two  bushels  of  home- 
grown corn.  He  felt  lucky  to  be  shipped  as  cook  and 
cabin  boy  for  Surinam,  at  $3. 50 per  month;  and  brought 
his  mother  twenty  silver  dollars,  more  than  she  had 
seen  since  the  death  of  her  husband  at  sea,  years  be- 
fore. Osborne  Howes,  a  prominent  Boston  merchant 
of  Cape  origin,  describes  the  thrifty  life  in  a  North 
Dennis  shipmaster's  family,  about  1812.  Deborah,  his 
mother,  made  all  the  clothing  for  herself  and  the  five 
children.  Cotton  and  wool  were  purchased  in  Boston, 
and  made  into  yarn  on  the  family  spinning-wheel 
during  the  winter.  When  the  days  became  longer,  she 
and  the  older  children  spent  an  hour  or  more  weaving 
every  morning  before  feeding  the  stock  or  preparing 
breakfast;  and  in  this  way  every  child  had  a  new 

146 


THE  SACRED  CODFISH 

woolen  kersey  suit,  and  two  of  striped  or  checked 
cotton  cloth  every  year.  Yet  she  was  always  bright 
and  joyous,  and  received  or  gave  visits  three  or  four 
times  a  week.  The  Cape  had  to  work  hard  for  its  daily 
bread,  but  what  it  got  was  good.  The  minister  of 
Chatham  gives  us  the  typical  menu  of  fishermen's 
families,  toward  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
Breakfast:  tea  or  coffee,  brown  bread  (of  home-grown 
'rye  and  injun'),  and  salt  or  fresh  fish.  Dinner:  one 
or  more  of  the  following  dishes:  roots  and  herbs, 
boiled  salt  meat,  wild  fowl  in  autumn,  fresh  fish,  boiled 
or  fried  with  pork,  shellfish,  boiled  salt  fish,  indian 
pudding,  pork  and  beans.  Supper:  the  same  as  break- 
fast, plus  cheese,  cakes,  gingerbread,  and  pie.  "Some 
have  pie  for  breakfast."  Thank  God  for  that! 

"  In  the  seaports  of  Massachusetts  Bay,  one-quarter 
of  the  people  live  on  fresh  fish,"  wrote  Stephen  Higgin- 
son  in  1775.  Every  seaside  village  sheltered  a  number 
of  boat  fishermen,  who  supplied  the  population  with 
fresh  fish,  especially  in  the  winter  season.  Of  this  in- 
dustry no  statistics  and  few  records  have  been  pre- 
served. Every  locality  had  its  favorite  type  of  boat, 
the  larger  using  the  mainsail  and  foresail  rig  of  the 
Chebacco  boats  (as  shown  in  the  picture  of  Mr. 
Joshua  Winsor's  house  at  Duxbury  and  the  wood  cut 
of  Provincetown  in  1839);  the  smaller  hoisting  a 
spritsail,  as  shown  on  the  certificate  of  the  Salem 
Marine  Society.  One  also  finds  frequent  mention  of 
canoes,1  but  whether  these  were  dugouts,  such  as  the 

1  For  instance,  "Went  adrift,  a  small  canoe  last  week,  supposed  to 
have  been  taken  up  by  some  Vessel  —  a  spritsail,  driver  and  Gibb, 
two  oars,  &c  on  board."  (Boston  Independent  Chronicle,  July  2,  1798.) 
The  birch-bark  canoe  was  very  little  used  in  colonial  Massachusetts, 
which  lay  south  of  the  range  of  the  canoe  birch.  The  square-sterned  skiffs 
carried  at  the  taffrail  on  seagoing  vessels,  as  shown  in  several  of  our  il- 
lustrations, were  called  "Moses  boats." 

147 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

colonists  used,  or  whether  the  name  had  been  trans- 
ferred to  a  small  type  of  lapstreak  boat,  I  have  been 
unable  to  ascertain.  On  Cape  Ann,  when  winter  kept 
the  Chebacco  boats  at  home,  the  Sandy  Bay  boys  put 
out  in  small  flat-bottomed  wherries,  ancestors  of  the 
modern  dory,  and  sold  their  catch  to  local  storekeepers. 
Swampscott,  a  snug  little  village  on  the  bight  between 
Marblehead  and  Nahant,  used  a  similar  model  to 
supply  the  shoemakers  of  Lynn.  Cape  Cod  and  Buz- 
zard's Bay  used  the  lapstreak,  round-bottomed  whale- 
boat,  and  the  Block  Island  or  Vineyard  sailboat,  a 
fast,  able  flat-bottomed  type  with  a  Chebacco  rig. 

We  must  not  forget  the  humble  shellfish,  whose 
praises  were  sung  by  William  Wood  in  his  "New 
England's  Prospect " : 

The  luscious  Lobster,  with  the  Crabfish  raw, 
The  Brinish  Oister,  Muscle,  Periwigge, 
And  Tortoise  sought  for  by  the  Indian  Squaw, 
Which  to  the  flats  daunce  many  a  winters  Jigge, 
To  dive  for  Codes,  and  to  digge  for  Clamms, 
Whereby  her  lazie  husbands  guts  shee  cramms. 

Wellfleet,  on  Cape  Cod,  specialized  in  oysters.  The 
enterprising  people  of  this  place,  when  some  marine 
epidemic  depleted  their  oyster-beds,  procured  fresh 
stock  from  Chesapeake  Bay;  and  by  1800  some  sixty 
thousand  bivalves  were  annually  transplanted  in  order 
to  acquire  the  Wellfleet  flavor.  When  properly  fat- 
tened, they  were  transported  by  locally  owned  vessels 
to  the  markets  of  Boston,  Salem,  and  Portland. 

Swampscott  claims  the  invention  of  the  lobster 
trap  in  1808,  previous  to  which  one  could  pick  up 
enough  lobsters  at  low  tide  to  supply  the  Boston  mar- 
ket. Orleans  specialized  in  the  humble  industry  of  clam- 
digging,  the  product  of  which,  shucked  and  salted 
and  packed  into  barrels,  provided  bait  for  codfishing. 

148 


THE  SCARED  CODFISH 

Another  Caperindustry  which  profited  by  the  shipping 
expansion  of  Federalist  days  was  "moon-cursing,"  or 
plundering  wrecks.  Gossipy  Dr.  Bentley,  apropos  the 
snowstorm  of  180,2  in  which  several  of  his  parishioners 
were  lost  on  Peaked  Hill  Bar,  recalled  the  story  of  the 
Reverend  Mr.  Lewis  of  Wellfleet.  During  his  sermon 
one  Sabbath,  this  sporting  parson  saw  through  the 
window  a  vessel  going  ashore.  He  stopped  his  ser- 
mon, descended  the  pulpit  stairs,  and  with  a  shout 
of  "Start  fair!"  led  his  congregation  pell-mell  out  of 
the  meeting-house  door.  A  few  years  later,  Dr.  Bent- 
ley  had  to  acknowledge  his  Cape  Ann  neighbors  no 
greater  respecters  of  flotsam  than  the  men  of  Cape 
Cod.  A  richly  laden  East-Indiaman,  running  ashore 
on  Thatcher's,  was  quickly  relieved  of  her  cargo.  But 
note  the  inexorable  workings  of  divine  justice.  The 
local  market  became  so  glutted  with  India  cottons  that 
the  wreckers'  wives  could  sell  no  product  of  their  looms 
for  almost  a  year! 

Dark  traditions  have  come  down  of  the  inhabitants 
of  Cuttyhunk  and  Tarpaulin  Cove,  decoying  vessels 
ashore  by  false  lights,  and  murdering  the  crew.  But 
the  people  of  Cape  Cod  and  Cape  Ann  always  treated 
shipwrecked  mariners  with  the  utmost  humanity. 
Zachary  G.  Lamson,  in  his  autobiography,  describes 
running  ashore  on  the  back  side  of  Cape  Cod,  on  the 
last  night  of  the  year  1801.  The  schooner  drove  over 
the  shoals  onto  the  beach,  so  that  the  crew  was  able 
to  walk  ashore  over  the  bowsprit ;  but  after  wandering 
about  in  the  small  hours  of  a  frigid  morning,  in  vain 
search  for  shelter,  two  fell  exhausted  on  the  beach. 
The  others  crawled  over  the  schooner's  gunwale  as  she 
lay  stranded  by  the  tide,  and  turned  in,  with  clothes 
frozen  stiff.  That  afternoon  some  men  of  Orleans  and 
Chatham,  who  had  seen  the  vessel  from  the  hills, 

149 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

pulled  them  out  of  bed,  and  dug  their  shipmates  out 
of  the  snow.  A  tough  breed,  these  Beverly  seamen. 
Peter  Woodbury  and  John  Low,  after  lying  twelve 
hours  in  the  snow  without  boots  or  mittens,  plus  a  six- 
mile  boat  journey,  encrusted  with  ice  like  a  tongue  in 
aspic,  were  restored  by  kind  Chatham  women  apply- 
ing hot  blankets  steadily  for  seven  hours.  A  day  or  two 
later,  they  walked  all  the  way  home  to  Beverly;  and 
Peter  served  as  master's  mate  on  the  Constitution  dur- 
ing the  War  of  1812. 

Although  the  codfisheries  no  longer  played  a  stellar 
r61e  in  the  pageant  of  maritime  Massachusetts,  their 
lesser  part  was  no  less  indispensable.  Pacific  and  Baltic 
trade  required  other  currency  than  fish;  but  much  of 
that  currency  was  obtained  in  the  first  instance  from 
fish.  The  sacred  cod  still  fed  the  West-India  and  Medi- 
terranean trades.  He  and  his  humbler  cousins  pro- 
vided the  seaboard  population  with  cheap  food.  Pur- 
suit of  him  employed  thousands  of  people  who  must 
otherwise  have  emigrated ;  restored  prosperity  to  the 
minor  seaports,  and  preserved  their  pristine  vigor. 


CHAPTER  XI 

NEWBURYPORT  AND  NANTUCKET 
I79O-I8I2 

NEWBURYPORT  was  unique  among  Massachusetts  sea- 
ports of  Federalist  days,  in  that  she  acquired  consid- 
erable wealth  without  aid  of  Oriental  trading.  This 
compact  little  town,  covering  one  square  mile  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Merrimac,  recovered  prosperity  through 
a  thrifty  combination  of  shipbuilding,  fishing,  West- 
India  and  European  trading,  distilling,  domestic  manu- 
factures, and  internal  improvements.  Her  population 
doubled  between  1776  and  1810,  her  fleet  increased 
from  118  vessels  of  twelve  thousand  tons  in  1790  to 
176  vessels  of  thirty  thousand  tons  in  1806.  Duties 
collected  on  imports  tripled  in  ten  years. 

Much  human  effort  was  required  before  Newbury- 
port  could  reap  full  advantage  of  her  position  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Merrimac.  The  entrance  lay  over  a  bar 
with  only  seven  feet  of  water  on  it  at  low  tide ;  a  bar 
that  broke  in  easterly  gales.  An  intricate  system  of 
day  and  night  signals,  shown  from  the  lighthouses  on 
Plum  Island,  warned  approaching  sail  when  it  was  un- 
safe to  enter.  Newburyport  opened  inland  communi- 
cation with  Hampton  by  a  canal  through  the  salt 
marshes.  Her  capitalists  organized,  in  1792,  the  "Pro- 
prietors of  the  Locks  and  Canals  on  Merrimack  River," 
who  in  four  years'  time  completed  a  canal  around  the 
Pawtucket  Falls  between  Chelmsford  and  Dracut.1 

1  It  was  this  corporation  which,  in  the  hands  of  Boston  capitalists 
of  Newburyport  descent,  became  the  corporate  overlord  of  the  manu- 
facturing city  of  Lowell. 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

By  this  means,  Newburyport  became  the  emporium 
for  lumber,  firewood,  and  country  produce  of  north- 
eastern Massachusetts  and  southern  New  Hampshire. 
At  the  same  time  the  Chain  Bridge,  built  three  miles 
above  the  town,  induced  seagoing  vessels  to  end  their 
voyages  at  Newburyport  instead  of  ascending  higher. 

It  was  this  canal,  tapping  new  sources  for  oak  and 
pine,  plus  inherited  aptitude,  which  enabled  the  lower 
Merrimac  to  hold  its  own  in  shipbuilding.  There  were 
two  shipyards  at  Haverhill  in  1800,  others  at  Ames- 
bury,  Salisbury,  and  Old  Newbury,  and  at  least  six 
at  Newburyport,  owned  by  Jackmans,  Curriers,  and 
other  ancestors  of  the  clipper-ship  builders.  Twelve 
thousand  tons  of  shipping  were  launched  on  the  Merri- 
mac in  1810,  and  practically  all  their  cordage,  sails, 
blocks,  ironwork,  and  fittings  were  made  locally. 

Newburyport  specialized  in  the  Labrador  and  Bay 
fisheries,  in  which  sixty  vessels  were  engaged  in  1806. 
Her  other  hundred  and  sixteen  vessels  were  employed 
in  coasting,  West-Indian,  and  European  trade  —  of 
which  more  anon.  Newburyport  was  also  noted  for 
rum  and  whiskey  distilleries,  for  Laird's  ale  and  porter, 
and  for  goldsmiths;  Jacob  Perkins  having  discovered 
a  cheap  method  of  making  gold-plated  beads,  which 
were  then  in  fashion.  Even  after  the  war-time  de- 
pression there  were  ten  jewelers'  and  watchmakers' 
shops  at  Newburyport.  Here  were  printed  and  pub- 
lished the  numerous  editions  of  Bowditch's  "Navi- 
gator," and  Captain  Furlong's  "American  Coast 
Pilot." 

Newburyport  boasted  a  society  inferior  to  that  of 
no  other  town  on  the  continent.  Most  of  the  leading 
families  were  but  one  generation  removed  from  the 
plough  or  the  forecastle;  but  they  had  acquired  wealth 
before  the  Revolution,  and  conducted  social  matters 

152 


NEWBURYPORT  AND  NANTUCKET 

with  the  grace  and  dignity  of  an  old  regime.  When 
Governor  Gore,  in  1809,  made  a  state  visit  to  New- 
buryport,  where  he  had  once  studied  law,  he  came  in 
coach  and  four  with  outriders,  uniformed  aides,  and 
a  cavalry  escort;  and  when  the  town  fathers  informed 
his  ancient  benefactress,  Madam  Atkins,  that  His  Ex- 
cellency would  honor  her  with  a  call,  the  spokesman 
delivered  his  message  on  his  knees  at  the  good  lady's 
feet.  We  read  of  weekly  balls  and  routs,  of  wedding 
coaches  drawn  by  six  white  horses  with  liveried  foot- 
men, in  this  town  of  less  than  eight  thousand  inhab- 
itants. When  personal  property  was  assessed,  several 
Newburyport  merchants  reported  from  one  thousand 
to  twelve  hundred  gallons  of  wine  in  their  cellars. 

Federalist  architecture  has  here  left  perhaps  her 
finest  permanent  trace.  High  street,  winding  along  a 
ridge  commanding  the  Merrimac,  rivals  Chestnut 
Street  of  Salem,  despite  hideous  interpolations  of  the 
late  nineteenth  century.  The  gambrel-roofed  type 
lasted  into  the  seventeen-nineties,  when  the  Newbury- 
port merchants  began  to  build  square,  three-storied, 
hip-roofed  houses  of  brick,  surrounded  with  ample 
grounds,  gardens,  and  'housins.'  The  ship  carpen- 
ters who  (if  tradition  is  correct)  designed  and  built 
these  houses,  adopted  neither  the  graceful  porches  nor 
the  applied  Adam  detail  of  Mclntire ;  but  their  tooled 
mouldings  on  panel,  cornice,  and  chimneypiece  have 
a  graceful  and  original  vigor.  They  also  invented,  or 
perhaps  acquired  from  provincial  Portsmouth,  an 
ingenious  form  of  stairway,  branching,  Y-shaped,  to 
serve  front  and  rear.  Although  inferior  to  Boston  and 
Salem  in  public  buildings,  "the  steeple  of  the  First 
Church  lately  built"  in  Newburyport,  asserts  the  criti- 
cal and  much-traveled  Dr.  Bentley,  "rivals  anything 
in  New  England."  It  certainly  does,  to-day. 

153 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

Timothy  Dwight,  who  visited  Newburyport  about 
1800,  wrote:  "The  houses,  taken  collectively,  make  a 
better  appearance  than  those  of  any  other  town  in 
New-England.  Many  of  them  are  particularly  hand- 
some. Their  appendages,  also,  are  unusually  neat. 
Indeed,  an  air  of  wealth,  taste  and  elegance,  is  spread 
over  this  beautiful  spot  with  the  cheerfulness  and  bril- 
liancy, to  which  I  know  no  rival.  .  .  .  Upon  the  whole, 
few  places,  probably,  in  the  world,  furnish  more  means 
of  a  delightful  residence  than  Newburyport." 


When  'Lord'  Timothy  Dexter,  Newburyport's  fa- 
mous eccentric,  sent  his  consignment  of  warming- 
pans  and  woolen  mittens  to  the  West  Indies,  he  knew 
what  he  was  about.  The  warming-pans,  as  every  one 
knows,  were  sold  for  syrup  ladles;  and  the  mitts  made 
a  suitable  speculation  for  some  Massachusetts  vessel 
that  was  leaving  for  Russia. 

This  Russian  trade  was  an  innovation  of  the  Federal- 
ist period.  Massachusetts  began  it,  and  until  the  Civil 
War  retained  over  half  of  it,  through  her  facilities  for 
handling  the  West- India  goods  of  which  Russia  stood 
in  need.  George  Cabot  of  Beverly  opened  this  com- 
merce in  May,  1784,  by  sending  his  ships  Bucanier 
and  Commerce  to  the  Baltic  and  to  St.  Petersburg.  In 
1788  theAstrea  was  disposing  of  tea,  Bourbon  coffee, 
New  England  rum,  Virginia  flour  and  tobacco  at 
Gothenburg.  They  brought  back  canvas,  duck,  hemp, 
Russian  and  Swedish  iron,  which,  with  household 
linen,  were  the  staples  of  the  Baltic  trade  for  the 
next  fifty  years.  These  articles  were  used  in  the  New 
England  shipbuilding  industry,  and  also  entered 
largely  into  cargoes  exported  to  the  Far  East.  No  in- 

154 


NEWBURYPORT  AND  NANTUCKET 

considerable  part  of  the  goods  exchanged  by  St.  Peters- 
burg and  Riga  with  India  and  China  went  in  Massa- 
chusetts vessels,  via  Salem  and  Boston.  And  it  will 
doubtless  surprise  many  people  to  learn  that  Salem  was 
importing  candles  and  soap  from  Archangel  in  1798. 

Dipping  casually  into  the  old  custom-house  records 
of  Newburyport,  I  find  on  top  of  a  neat  bundle  of 
coastwise  manifests  for  1810,  that  the  locally  owned 
ship  Nancy,  Moses  Brown  master,  paid  $3279.25  in 
duties  on  eighty-eight  boxes  of  sugar  from  Pernam- 
buco.  It  was  shipped  to  Boston  in  the  sloop  Mary,  and 
exported  thence  to  St.  Petersburg  in  the  brig  Industry. 
The  next  document  traces  a  parcel  of  Russia  linen 
sheetings.  Imported  from  Cronstadt  into  Newbury- 
port by  the  ship  Merrimack,  William  Bartlett  master,  it 
was  shipped  in  the  sloop  Blue  Bird 1  to  Boston,  and  re- 
exported  thence  in  the  brig  Betsey  to  Havana.  There, 
it  was  doubtless  exchanged  for  sugar,  the  most  valu- 
able medium  for  our  Baltic  trade.  Not  only  did  this  tri- 
angular commerce  give  quick  turnover  and  large  prof- 
its; it  supplied  maritime  New  England  with  the  iron, 
hemp,  and  linen  duck,  which,  until  replaced  by  the 
products  of  Pennsylvania,  Manila,  and  Lowell,  were 
indispensable  to  her  shipbuilding,  fisheries,  and  naviga- 
tion. 

* 
*        * 

The  first  white  settlers  of  Nantucket,  in  the  seven- 
teenth century,  were  Quakers  and  harborers  of  Quakers 
who  fled  from  persecution  at  Old  Newbury.  With 
Whittier  as  guide,  let  us  follow  Goodman  Macy's  little 
shallop  across  the  harbor  bar,  by  the  golden  sands  of 

1  This  small  coasting  packet,  when  wrecked  in  1805,  had  a  cargo 
aboard  worth  $90,000.  She  was  refloated,  but  the  cargo  lost. 

155 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

Plum  Island,  and  watch  the  sun  drop  behind  the 
rounded  Ipswich  hills.  The  garrison's  watch-fire  guides 
us  around  Cape  Ann ;  keeping  the  North  Star  over  our 
port  quarter  brings  us  to  Cape  Cod.  After  a  pause  in 
Provincetown  Harbor  for  a  good  chance,  an  offshore 
breeze  takes  us  around  the  Cape,  through  the  danger- 
ous shoals  and  rips  which  deflected  the  Mayflower  from 
her  course ;  and  to  Nantucket. 

Before  1775,  the  descendants  of  the  Macys  and 
Coffins  and  Folgers  and  Husseys  had  spread  the  fame 
of  this  island  by  their  boldness  and  enterprise  as 
whalemen.  Then  came  the  war.  Nantucket  lost  one 
hundred  and  fifty  vessels  by  capture  and  shipwreck, 
leaving  only  two  or  three  old  hulks  out  of  her  entire 
fleet.  The  whaling  village  of  Bedford,  her  young  main- 
land rival,  was  equally  depressed.  The  British  had 
burned  its  warehouses  and  thirty-four  sail  in  the  har- 
bor; and  only  two  or  three  survived  of  its  whaling  fleet 
of  forty  or  fifty. 

The  English  government,  hoping  to  force  the  Is- 
landers to  remove  to  Nova  Scotia,  placed  a  prohibitive 
duty  on  whale  and  sperm  oil,  cutting  off  their  principal 
market;  and  in  1785  the  French  government  invited 
them  to  settle  at  Dunkirk.  Beggars  were  crying  for 
bread  in  the  streets  of  Nantucket ;  but  only  nine  fami- 
lies accepted  this  invitation,  and  even  less  went  to 
Dartmouth,  Nova  Scotia.  But  over  two  hundred  of  the 
men,  either  during  or  after  the  Revolution,  were  forced 
to  accept  commands  of  British  or  French  whalers. 
Others  turned  to  codfishing,  founding  picturesque  but 
profitless  settlements  on  the  south  shore  of  the  island, 
at  Siasconset,  Sasacacha,  and  Weweeder.  One  group 
attempted  an  East-India  voyage,  with  disastrous  re- 
sults. For  the  most  part  the  people  waited  for  better 
times,  "taking  in  each  others'  washing"  for  a  living, 

156 


NEWBURYPORT  AND  NANTUCKET 

according  to  the  classic  jest  —  and  it  was  something 
more  than  a  jest  in  the  Nan  tucket  of  1790,  with  no  less 
than  one  hundred  and  eighty-five  widows  unable  to 
support  themselves. 

The  commonwealth,  out  of  its  poverty,  granted  a 
bounty  on  whaling  products;  England  gave  up  trying 
to  sink  Nan  tucket ;  and  the  old  whaling  masters  began 
to  fit  out  old  vessels,  and  to  have  apple-bowed,  square- 
sterned  ships  of  two  to  three  hundred  tons  burthen 
built  for  them  on  the  North  River.1  By  1789,  Nan- 
tucket  had  eighteen  vessels  engaged  in  the  northern 
right-whale  fishery,  and  an  equal  number  pursuing  the 
more  valuable  sperm  whale  off  the  coast  of  Brazil; 
Dartmouth  (including  New  Bedford  and  Westport) 
and  Cape  Cod  had  fifty-seven  small  right-whalers  of 
sixty  tons,  and  nine  sperm-whalers. 

It  was  a  British  whaler  manned  by  exiled  Nantuck- 
eters  that  first  pursued  the  sperm  whale  into  the  Pa- 
cific Ocean.  Four  years  later,  in  1791,  six  Nantucket 
whalers,  and  one  from  New  Bedford,  took  the  same 
course.  They  found  good  hunting  along  the  Chilian 
coast,  and  returned  in  time  to  profit  by  a  good  market 
in  France. 

From  that  time  on,  smoky  glare  of  whalers'  try- 
works  was  never  absent  from  the  vast  spaces  of  the 
Pacific.  Before  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  the 
whalemen  began  that  exploration  of  the  South  Sea 
which  is  still  recorded  by  islands  named  for  Starbucks, 
Coffins,  Bakers,  Folgers,  Husseys,  and  Rowlands  of 
Nantucket  and  New  Bedford. 

1  The  Maria,  202  tons,  built  at  Pembroke  for  William  Rotch,  in  1782, 
was  still  whaling  in  1872.  Oil  acted  on  the  timbers  as  a  preservative. 
The  ship  Rousseau  was  in  commission  ninety-seven  years,  the  barque 
Triton,  seventy-nine;  and  in  the  summer  of  1920  the  barque  Charles  W. 
Morgan,  built  in  1841,  was  fitting  out  for  another  whaling  voyage  at 
Fair  haven. 

157 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

On  the  Island  of  Santa  Maria  in  the  Galapagos 
group,  was  the  '  whalers'  post-office ' ;  a  box  on  a  tree 
where  letters  and  two-year-old  newspapers  were  ex- 
changed. Even  Australasia  lay  within  their  scope.  By 
1804,  our  whalemen  and  sealskinners  had  made  them- 
selves so  comfortable  along  the  north  coast  of  Tasmania 
that  the  governor  of  Australia  issued  a  proclamation 
against  their  building  vessels  on  his  shores. 

Whaling  crews  at  this  period  were  recruited  entirely 
from  Nantucket  and  the  Old  Colony.  Gay  Head  In- 
dians were  preferred  as  harpooners,  and  many  local 
negroes  were  shipped  as  green  hands;  but  a  whaling 
skipper  generally  knew  the  record  if  not  the  pedigree 
of  every  man  who  sailed  under  his  command.  Wages 
were  not  paid  to  whalemen.  The  old  share  or  'lay' 
system  of  the  seventeenth  century  continued;  and  for 
the  first  time  was  recorded  in  written  contracts.  The 
workers'  share  was  far  more  generous  than  in  the  so- 
called  golden  age  of  whaling,  a  generation  later.  The 
usual  'lay'  for  a  three-boat  ship  of  twenty-one  men, 
about  1804,  was  three-fifths  of  the  catch  to  the  owners, 
one-eighteenth  to  the  master,  one-forty-eighth  to  the 
"ends  men,"  one-seventy-fifth  to  each  able  seaman, 
one-eightieth  or  ninetieth  to  each  negro  hand,  and 
a  one-hundred-and-twentieth  to  the  cabin  boy. 

Prices  of  whale  products  ruled  fairly  high  during 
the  Federalist  period,  and  a  good  export  trade  was 
built  up;  England  being  our  best  customer  for  sperm 
oil,  and  France  and  Spain  for  whale  oil.  But  the  ground 
lost  in  the  Revolutionary  War  was  not  entirely  recov- 
ered.1 Americans  had  become  so  used  to  tallow  can- 
dles during  the  war,  that  they  had  to  be  educated  to 
appreciate  the  excellent  spermaceti  article  turned  out 
by  Nantucket.  The  European  war,  with  its  spoliations 
1  See  table  in  Appendix. 
158 


NEWBURYPORT  AND  NANTUCKET 

and  embargoes,  greatly  hampered  whaling,  while  it 
gave  inflated  profits  to  the  merchant  marine.  The 
harbor,  with  only  seven  and  a  half  feet  on  the  bar  at 
low  tide,  was  a  serious  handicap  as  the  size  of  whal- 
ers increased,  and  eventually  proved  Nantucket's  un- 
doing. 

Nantucket,  however,  by  handling  and  marketing 
her  own  products,  prevented  'off-islanders'  from  reap- 
ing the  fruits  of  her  industry.  Byi8n,when  a  Phila- 
delphia traveler  made  the  accompanying  sketch,  the 
town  had  every  earmark  of  thrift  and  prosperity.  It 
had  doubled  its  pre-Revolutionary  population,  and 
acquired  some  fifteen  thousand  tons  of  shipping,  most 
of  which  was  absent  on  the  Pacific  Ocean  when  the 
sketch  was  made.  Several  sail  of  whalers,  however, 
are  lying  at  the  wharves,  and  the  Falmouth  packet- 
sloop  has  just  passed  in  between  Brant  Point  Light 
and  Coatue. 

Even  before  the  famous  foundation  of  her  distin- 
guished exile,  Admiral  Sir  Isaac  Coffin,  Nantucket 
had  better  schools  than  many  mainland  seaports.  She 
had  fifteen  to  twenty  candle-works  and  refineries,  ten 
rope-walks,  a  bank,  a  museum,  an  insurance  office,  and 
a  Free  Masons'  hall  "with  lonick  pilasters  in  front." 
The  Lisbon  bell,  whose  sweet  tones  to-day  greet  off- 
island  visitors,  was  already  hung  in  the  stumpy  tower 
of  the  old  North  Church.  Tidy  clapboarded  houses, 
painted  white  or  green,  with  'captains'  walks'  atop, 
were  beginning  to  replace  the  shingled  dwellings  of 
colonial  days.  Almost  the  entire  male  population  of 
Nantucket  followed  the  sea;  and  the  rest  were  de- 
pendent on  it.  Even  the  cows,  apparently,  came  down 
to  the  harbor's  edge  to  browse,  and  take  in  the  scene 
of  marine  activity! 


CHAPTER  XII 

FEDERALISM  AND  NEUTRAL  TRADE 
1789-1807 

FEDERALISM  has  opposite  connotations  in  Europe  and 
America,  and  a  very  special  meaning  east  of  the  Hud- 
son. New  England  Federalism  was  at  once  a  political 
system,  and  a  point  of  view.  Sired  by  Neptune  out 
of  Puritanism,  the  teacher  of  its  youth  was  Edmund 
Burke.  Washington,  Hamilton,  and  Fisher  Ames 
formed  the  trinity  of  its  worship.  Timothy  Pickering 
was  the  kept  politician  of  New  England  Federalism, 
Harrison  Gray  Otis  its  spellbinder,  Boston  its  political 
and  Hartford  its  intellectual  capital,  Harvard  and 
Yale  the  seminaries  of  its  priesthood.  New  England 
Federalism  believed  that  the  main  object  of  govern- 
ment was  to  protect  property,  especially  commercial 
and  shipping  property;  and  it  supported  nationalism 
or  states'  rights  according  as  the  federal  government 
protected  or  neglected  these  interests  of  maritime  New 
England.  It  aimed  to  create  and  maintain  in  power 
a  governing  class,  of  educated,  well-to-do  men.  Re- 
garding Jeffersonian  democracy  a  mere  misbegotten 
brat  of  the  French  Revolution,  New  England  Federal- 
ism directed  its  main  efforts  toward  choking  the  par- 
ent, hoping  thereby  either  to  starve  the  progeny,  or  to 
wean  it  from  an  evil  heritage. 

Federalism  did  not  attain  the  rigidity  of  a  system 
until  the  early  nineteenth  century;  but  the  economic 
block  that  formed  its  basis  was  already  formed  in  1790. 
All  the  maritime  interests  of  New  England  were  in 
reality  one  interest,  that  must  stand  or  fall  together. 

160 


FEDERALISM  AND  NEUTRAL  TRADE 

No  one  of  her  sea-borne  industries  was  self-sufficient, 
and  many  of  the  greater  merchants  were  directly  con- 
cerned in  all  of  them.  By  1790,  Boston  and  Salem  . 
were  no  mere  market  towns  for  salt  fish  and  country 
produce,  but  entrepots  of  world  commerce.  The  out- 
ward cargoes  to  the  East  Indies  were  first  obtained 
through  trading  with  the  West  Indies,  the  Mediter- 
ranean, and  northern  Europe;  and  the  success  of 
Yankee  vessels  in  these  markets  depended  as  much  on 
their  skillful  handling  of  Southern  produce,  as  on  the 
ancient  Massachusetts  staples  of  fish,  lumber,  whale- 
oil,  and  rum.  Although  the  use  of  tea,  coffee,  spices, 
and  imported  sugar  became  general  among  all  classes 
of  the  New  England  population  at  this  period,  the 
bulk  of  the  Oriental  cargoes  brought  into  Salem  and 
Boston  was  reexported.  No  section  of  the  edifice 
could  be  touched  without  disturbing  the  rest.  Yet 
every  block  was  composed  of  white  oak,  the  raw  ma- 
terial of  New  England  shipping.  In  final  analysis,  the 
power  of  Massachusetts  as  a  commercial  state  lay  in 
her  ships,  and  the  men  who  built,  owned,  and  sailed 
them. 


All  matters  of  shipping  and  navigation  fell  within 
the  scope  of  the  federal  government's  protecting  arm. 
Massachusetts  promptly  ceded  her  seven  lighthouses1 
to  the  United  States,  which  assumed  the  burden  of 
maintaining  them,  and  of  building  new  ones.  For 
these  few,'  dim  whale-oil  lights  did  not  satisfy  com- 

1  Portland  Head  (Maine),  Plum  Island  Lights  near  Newburyport, 
Cape  Ann  Lights  on  Thatcher's  Island,  Boston  Light,  Plymouth  Lights 
on  the  Gurnet,  Brant  Point  and  Great  Point  Lights  on  Nantucket. 
There  were  only  eight  more  in  the  whole  United  States. 

161 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

mercial  interests.  Vessels  from  the  South,  the  West 
Indies,  and  the  Far  East  approached  Massachusetts 
Bay  by  way  of  Vineyard  Sound,  Nantucket  Sound, 
and  the  back  side  of  the  Cape.  On  a  fair  westerly  day 
in  the  seventeen-nineties,  fifty  or  sixty  sail  could  be 
seen  from  any  point  on  this  great  ocean  fairway.  But 
imagine  sailing  this  course  at  night,  as  the  most  lei- 
surely of  merchantmen  might  wish  to  do  if  the  wind 
were  fair,  rather  than  risk  a  week's  stay  at  Holmes's 
Hole.  Leaving  Great  Point  astern,  one  entered  a  dark 
chasm  into  which  Cape  Cod  stretched  its  tentacles  of 
death. 

Petitions  from  the  Boston  Marine  Society  and  other 
influential  bodies  induced  the  Government  in  1797 
to  erect  on  the  Clay  Pounds,  Truro,  the  Highland  or 
Cape  Cod  Light.  His  powerful  glare,  varied  by  a  com- 
forting wink  every  sixty  seconds,  took  vessels  in  charge 
before  Great  Point  dipped  under  the  horizon,  and  saw 
them  safely  around  the  Cape  to  within  the  scope  of 
Boston  Light  or  Thatcher's.  Within  a  few  years  Gay 
Head  Light  was  established  at  the  entrance  to  this 
highway,  the  twins  of  Chatham  Bar  gave  the  line  to  a 
safe  shelter,  and  Boon  and  Seguin  were  set  up  to  guard 
the  coast  of  Maine. 

The  approach  to  Salem  Harbor  is  particularly  diffi- 
cult in  thick  weather  or  at  night,  on  account  of  the 
many  islands  and  submerged  rocks  in  the  bay.  After 
a  fatal  storm  in  January,  1796,  the  federal  govern- 
ment established  a  safe  guide  to  the  best  channel,  the 
Baker's  Island  Lights: 

Two  pale  sisters,  all  alone 

On  an  island  bleak  and  bare, 
Listening  to  the  breakers  moan, 

Shivering  in  the  chilly  air. 

162 


FEDERALISM  AND  NEUTRAL  TRADE 

Four  buoys  at  the  mouth  of  the  Merrimac  were  ap- 
parently the  only  such  aids  to  navigation  in  Massa- 
chusetts waters  until  1797,  when  Congress  appro- 
priated sixteen  hundred  dollars  for  sixteen  buoys,  "to 
be  placed  in  and  near  the  harbor  of  Boston."  They 
were  made  of  five-foot  wooden  staves  bound  by  iron 
hoops,  in  the  form  of  a  truncated  cone,  and  moored  by 
the  smaller  end.  Nantucket  Harbor,  so  difficult  of 
access  as  to  require  twice  the  pilotage  rates  of  Bos- 
ton, was  buoyed  before  1809.  But  the  present  efficient 
marking  of  ledges  and  channels  developed  very  slowly. l 
Not  until  1843  did  the  federal  government  begin  a  sys- 
tematic coast  survey. 

Private  enterprise  supplemented  the  Government's  s 
efforts.  The  Boston  Marine  Society  passed  critical 
judgment  on  published  charts,  and  examined  candi- 
dates for  Boston  pilots.  Nathaniel  Bowditch  brought 
out  an  excellent  chart  and  sailing  directions  to  Salem 
bay,  based  on  surveys  and  soundings  made  by  Captain 
John  Gibaut  and  his  pastor,  Dr.  Bentley.  Before  1800 
there  was  established  a  'Telegraphe'  system,  which, 
by  semaphores  at  Edgartown,  Wood's  Hole,  Sand- 
wich, Plymouth,  Marshfield,  Scituate,  and  Hull,  noti- 
fied Boston  and  Salem  shipmasters  of  the  arrival  of 
their  vessels  at  Vineyard  Haven.  The  Humane  So- 
ciety of  the  Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts  and  the 
Merrimack  Humane  Society  erected  huts  of  refuge 
on  dangerous  and  deserted  stretches  of  the  coast;  a 

1  The  method  of  establishing  new  buoys  is  shown  by  the  following  let- 
ter from  H.  A.  S.  Dearborn,  collector  of  the  port  of  Boston,  to  the  col- 
lector at  Barnstable,  May  22,  1813:  "Sir,  I  am  directed  by  the  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury  to  have  a  Buoy  placed  at  the  entrance  of  Barnstable 
Harbour,  provided  the  expense  does  not  exceed  one  Hundred  Dollars. 
You  are  hereby  authorized  to  have  a  Buoy  made,  &  placed  where  it  is 
most  wanted.  .  .  .  Mr.  J.  L.  Green  has  recommended  Captain  Prince 
Howe  as  a  suitable  person  to  do  the  work." 

163 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

boon  to  shipwrecked  mariners  who  often  passed  safely 
through  the  breakers  only  to  perish  of  exposure  and 
hunger  on  the  sandy  wastes  of  Cape  Cod  or  Plum 
Island. 

Shipwrecks  on  the  New  England  coast  still  remained 
the  principal  form  of  casualty  in  the  Massachusetts 
merchant  marine.  Peaked  Hill  Bar  on  Cape  Cod  took 
a  heavy  toll,  even  after  Highland  Light  was  estab- 
lished; for  no  light  could  penetrate  the  fog,  rain,  and 
snowstorms  that  inflict  our  coast.  Four  vessels  were 
lost  within  sight  of  Salem,  in  a  southeast  rainstorm  of 
February,  1807.  The  reefs  off  Cohasset  were  "annu- 
ally the  scene  of  the  most  heart-rending  disasters," 
forty  vessels  being  wrecked  in  one  space  of  nine  years, 
until  the  present  lighthouse  on  Minot's  Ledge,  a  site 
more  difficult  even  than  the  famous  Eddystone,  was 
completed  in  i860.1  Nan  tucket  Shoals  lightship  was 
not  established  until  1854.  But  the  lighthouses 
erected  and  maintained  by  the  United  States,  under 
the  watchful  care  of  Hamilton,  saved  many  valuable 
lives  and  ships,  and  created  a  new  bond  of  obligation 
between  maritime  Massachusetts  and  the  administra- 
tion. 

Maritime  Massachusetts  expected  something  more 
from  the  federal  government  than  'lights,  buoys  and 
daymarks,'  and  she  sent  the  right  men  to  the  capital 
to  get  it.  Her  senior  senatorship  was  first  conferred 
upon  Caleb  Strong,  of  Northampton,  to  conciliate  the 
western  counties.  But  when  it  came  to  choosing  the 
junior  senator,  "the  merchants  made  the  Constitu- 
tion," said  James  Sullivan,  "and  they  should  name  the 
candidate."  Tristram  Dal  ton  was  accordingly  chosen, 
and  proceeded  to  New  York  in  Newburyport  style,  in 

1  The  first  Minot's  Ledge  Lighthouse,  completed  in  1850,  was  demol- 
ished by  a  gale  the  following  year. 

164 


FEDERALISM  AND  NEUTRAL  TRADE 

his  own  four-horse  coach,  emblazoned  with  the  Dalton 
arms,  and  attended  by  servants  in  the  Dalton  livery. 
"Everything  that  can  affect  shipbuilding  I  shall  watch 
with  a  jealous  eye,"  he  wrote  a  constituent,  when  the 
first  tariff  debate  began.  Other  jealous  eyes  were  on 
the  rum  industry,  and  Vice-President  Adams's  casting 
vote  once  broke  a  Senate  deadlock  in  favor  of  a  low 
duty  on  molasses.  Dalton  was  succeeded  in  the  Senate 
by  George  Cabot,  who  had  left  Harvard  before  the 
Revolution  to  go  to  sea,  and  conducted  a  mercantile 
business  at  Beverly  and  Boston,  beside  taking  an  ac- 
tive part  in  the  state  government.  Until  1816  the 
United  States  Senate  contained  a  merchant  of  Boston 
or  of  Essex  County,  except  for  a  period  of  five  years, 
when  Timothy  Pickering  upheld  the  same  interest. 

The  merchants  had  worked  for  a  more  perfect  union 
to  obtain  protection;  nor  were  they  disappointed.  No 
section  or  interest  in  the  United  States  was  so  fa- 
vored by  Washington's  and  Adams's  administrations, 
as  maritime  Massachusetts.  The  fishing  bounties,  we 
have  already  mentioned.  The  first  tariff  acts  (1789 
and  1790)  caused  much  grumbling,  because  of  duties 
on  iron,  hemp,  and  molasses  (2!  cents  a  gallon!);  but 
no  subsequent  tariff  proved  of  such  benefit  to  Massa- 
chusetts shipping  and  commerce.  The  drawback  sys- 
tem (refunding  of  tariff  duties)  was  adopted  for  goods 
reexported  within  a  year;  and  Massachusetts  became 
the  greatest  state  for  this  branch  of  commerce.  For- 
eign vessels  had  to  pay  ten  per  cent  additional  duty 
on  ordinary  goods,  and  about  fifty  per  cent  on  teas. * 

1  Bohea  tea,  the  cheapest  grade,  paid  10  cents  a  pound  duty  if  im- 
ported in  an  American  vessel  from  beyond  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope;  12 
cents  if  imported  in  an  American  vessel  from  Europe;  15  cents  if  other- 
wise imported.  For  Hyson  tea  the  figures  were  32,  40,  and  50  cents. 
American  registry  at  this  period  was  confined  to  vessels  owned  wholly 
by  American  citizens  and  built  in  the  United  States;  or  foreign-built 

165 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

Elias  Hasket  Derby  petitioned,  and  Hamilton  recom- 
mended a  bonded  warehouse  system,  which  was 
adopted  for  teas  in  1791.  Customs  duties  could  be  paid 
as  the  teas  were  sold,  at  any  time  within  two  years  of 
their  importation.  A  similar  privilege  for  shorter  pe- 
riods was  extended  in  1795  to  importers  of  West- India 
and  European  goods. 

Most  important  in  their  consequences  were  the  ton- 
nage duties,  which  were  levied  on  vessels  entering  from 
foreign  ports.  American  vessels  paid  six  cents  per  ton 
burthen  under  the  act  of  1790;  foreign  vessels,  fifty 
cents  per  ton.  In  the  coasting  trade  an  American  ves- 
sel need  pay  this  fee  but  once  a  year,  but  a  foreign  ves- 
sel had  to  pay  it  at  every  port. 

The  direct  result  of  these  discriminating  duties  was  to 
drive  English  and  other  foreign  vessels  from  American 
ports,  in  favor  of  those  built  and  owned  in  the  United 
States.  Massachusetts  shipbuilding  was  quick  to  bene- 
fit from  the  change.  Her  tonnage  in  1 792  was  triple  that 
of  1789,  and  amounted  to  a  little  over  one- third  the 
total  American  fleet.  This  extraordinary  increase  came 
before  the  Anglo-French  war  gave  additional  stimulus. 

Most  of  these  protective  measures  had  been  pushed 
through  by  Alexander  Hamilton.  His  conscious  policy 
was  to  favor  the  merchant-shipowner  class,  both  to  gain 
their  powerful  influence  for  strong  government,  and 
for  the  impost  and  tonnage  duties,  which  accounted 
for  ninety-two  per  cent  of  the  revenues  of  the  United 
States  in  1791.  His  funding  of  the  domestic  debt,  and 
assumption  of  the  state  debts,  put  money  in  the 
pockets  of  the  merchants,  who  held  large  quantities 

vessels  already  owned  by  Americans  in  1789.  Other  vessels  —  such  as 
condemned  French  prizes  —  owned  by  Americans  were  allowed  to  sail 
under  authority  of  a  sea-letter,  but  had  to  pay  the  same  dues  as  foreign 
vessels,  except  light-money. 

1 66 


FEDERALISM  AND  NEUTRAL  TRADE 

of  depreciated  government  securities.  Consequently 
Hamilton's  financial  policy,  which  from  the  latitude 
of  Charlottesville,  Virginia,  appeared  unwarranted, 
unconstitutional,  and  anti-republican,  seemed  natural, 
necessary,  and  statesmanlike  in  Essex  County,  Massa- 
chusetts. It  was  just  what  maritime  Massachusetts 
had  ratified  the  Constitution  to  obtain !  To  the  leaders 
of  Bay  State  Federalism,  Thomas  Jefferson  seemed  a 
mutinous  officer  on  the  ship  of  state,  and  his  demo- 
cratic, loose-construction  principles,  the  Jolly  Roger 
of  a  piratical  craft. 

From  1789  to  1799  Hamilton  dictated  the  financial 
and  the  foreign  policies  of  the  Washington  and  Adams 
administrations;  and  his  privy  council  was  the  Essex 
Junto.  This  remarkable  group  of  men,  which  guided 
the  destinies  of  New  England  Federalism  from  its  birth 
to  its  dissolution,  was  composed  of  practical  and  highly 
intelligent  merchants  and  lawyers  of  Essex  origin,  who 
had  migrated  to  Boston  in  search  of  greater  opportu- 
nities. George  Cabot  was  the  Junto  oracle,  Stephen 
Higginson,  of  Salem,  its  practical  merchant,  Jonathan 
Jackson  and  John  Lowell,  Jr.,  of  Newburyport,  its 
elder  statesman  and  pamphleteer,  and  Chief  Justice 
Parsons,  brother  of  two  prominent  merchants  from 
Gloucester,  its  fount  of  legal  learning.  Timothy  Pick- 
ering and  Fisher  Ames  were  admitted  to  full  intimacy, 
Christopher  Gore  and  James  Lloyd  hovered  on  the  out- 
skirts. Most  of  their  families  were  intermarried,  and 
their  opinions,  or  rather  prejudices,  were  the  standard 
of  'right  thinking'  in  eastern  Massachusetts.  Life 
and  politics  they  regarded  as  from  the  quarterdeck  of 
an  East-Indiaman.  Harrison  Gray  Otis  and  Josiah 
Quincy  were  little  more  than  their  political  chantey- 
men,  and  all  Massachusetts  scurried  to  furl  topsails 
when  the  Essex  Junto  roared  the  command. 

167 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 


The  affiliations  of  maritime  Massachusetts  with 
British  capital  were  equally  significant.  In  1783  the 
merchants  renewed  their  ties  with  London  merchant- 
bankers,  like  the  firm  of  Lane,  Son  &  Fraser,  with 
whom  they  had  traded  before  the  war.  With  other 
firms,  like  the  Baring  Brothers  (both  of  whom  married 
daughters  of  a  wealthy  Philadelphia  merchant),  their 
relations  became  very  close.  Hamilton's  United  States 
Bank,  and  the  several  state  banks  organized  at  this 
period,  by  no  means  sufficed  to  float  commercial 
operations.1  It  was  from  merchant-bankers  of  London 

1  The  insurance  of  the  Massachusetts  merchant  marine  at  this  period 
was  underwritten  locally,  however.  Between  1799  and  1805  there  were 
incorporated  at  least  three  marine  insurance  companies  in  Boston  (in 
addition  to  seven  private  insurance  offices),  three  each  in  Salem  and 
Newburyport,  two  in  Nantucket,  and  one  each  in  Beverly,  Marblehead, 
Gloucester,  and  New  Bedford.  Peter  C.  Brooks,  one  of  the  wealthiest  of 
Boston  merchants,  made  most  of  his  fortune  in  marine  insurance.  I  add 
some  of  the  rates  occasionally  quoted  in  the  Boston  Price-Current  and 
Marine  Intelligencer  showing  the  difference  made  by  the  French  spolia- 
tions. 


From  Boston  to 

Sept  .-Dec. 
1796 

Feb.  6, 
1797 

Any  European  port,  except  the  following  

2j@  3 

6  @  7 

Baltic  and  Mediterranean  ports,  warranted  free 
from  seizure  

3  @  3! 

5 

Cape  of  Good  Hope,  He  de  France,  &c  

5  @  6 

9  @  10 

Madeira,  Canaries,  C.  Verde  Is.  &c  

2\  ©  t 

Persia,  India,  with  liberty  to  trade  at  any  ports 
or  places  

5  @  6 

IO 

China  out  and  home  

IO  @  12 

20 

Jamaica  

2$  @  3 

17* 

Other  West-India  Islands  

2i  @  1 

9  @  10 

Nova  Scotia  and  Newfoundland  

2  @  2\ 

5  @  6 

Quebec  .  . 

l4  ©  A. 

New  Orleans  

.  .3*  @  4 

IO 

St.  Augustine  and  Bahamas  

2 

6 

United  States  ports  

ii  @  2 

2i  @  ^ 

168 


FEDERALISM  AND  NEUTRAL  TRADE 

that  the  Boston  shipowners  obtained,  on  credit,  their 
outward  cargoes  to  the  Northwest  Coast.  London, 
moreover,  was  the  world's  money-market.  Exchange 
on  Boston  or  New  York  was  valueless  outside  the 
United  States ;  but  exchange  on  London  was  as  good 
as  gold  throughout  the  western  world.  With  proper 
banking  connections  in  London,  a  Massachusetts  ship- 
master could  buy  bills  with  his  cargo  in  a  foreign  port 
where  no  profitable  return  lading  was  available,  and 
remit  to  his  London  banker;  or  instead  of  having  to 
sell  his  outward  cargo  before  reloading,  he  could  leave 
it  with  a  commission  merchant,  obtain  a  new  venture 
by  drawing  against  his  London  account,  and  be  off 
without  loss  of  time.  Such  relations  were  particularly 
useful  when  unexpected  repairs  or  losses  had  to  be  met. 
They  were  equivalent  to  a  Brown-Shipley  or  Baring 
Brothers  letter  of  credit  to-day,  or  to  a  checking  ac- 
count in  making  local  purchases.  Consequently  her 
English  connections  were  vital  to  maritime  Massachu- 
setts, and  peace  with  Britain  seemed  worth  almost  any 
price. 

Had  Europe  remained  tranquil,  had  the  Dutch  Re- 
public endured,  and  had  French  energy  been  guided 
into  finance  and  industry,  it  is  possible  that  Amster- 
dam or  Paris  would  have  replaced  London  as  the  finan- 
cial center  for  American  commerce.  Many  Massachu- 
setts merchants  deplored  their  too  close  dependence 
on  English  credit.  The  French  Revolution  served  to 
draw  the  two  countries  together  in  trade  as  well  as  in 
thought,  until  its  cataclysmic  period  began  in  1792. 
From  that  time  on  the  American  trade  with  France 
and  the  French  colonies  became  a  colossal  speculation, 
which  appealed  to  the  younger  and  more  adventurous 
merchants,  but  appalled  those  who  already  had  sound 
British  connections.  France,  hemmed  in  by  British 

169 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

sea-power,  threw  open  her  colonial  trade  to  neutrals. 
Famine,  disorganization,  and  blockade  raised  the  price 
of  American  provisions  to  unheard-of  figures.  Fortunes 
could  be  made  in  Paris  by  speculating  in  exchange, 
buying  confiscated  church  or  emigre  estates,  taking 
a  share  in  French  privateers,  or  bidding  in  their  prizes. 
Such  members  of  the  younger  generation  as  desired 
more  refined  adventure  than  the  Northwest  Coast  af- 
forded, hastened  to  France.  The  blithe  spirit  of  these 
youngsters  is  well  illustrated  by  a  letter  of  twenty-one- 
year-old  Ralph  Bennet  Forbes,  who  founded  a  great 
mercantile  family  of  Boston: 

Boston  i  Nov.  1794. 

...  I  was  hurried  away  in  June  ten  days  after  my  arrival  in  France 
(almost  malgre  moi)  in  order  to  close  in  the  West  Indies  to  the  sat- 
isfaction of  the  two  respectable  houses  who  were  concerned  (James 
&  Thomas  H.  Perkins  &  Stephen  Higginson,  Esq.)  of  these  people 
I  enjoy  the  confidence  and  I  believe  the  esteem,  this  I  hope  is  not 
lessened  by  having  made  a  great  voyage  —  this  by  the  way  —  le 
temps  passe,  il  faut  tenir  parole. 

I  have  now  in  contemplation  a  voyage  to  France . . .  my  plan  is 
rather  speculative  and  I  may  extend  my  personal  excursion  as  far 
as  1'Isle  de  France,  this  will  depend  on  1'etat  actuel  de  la  guerre, 
which  I  think  will  soon  be  finished.  C'est  le  moment,  mon  cher,  pour 
les  jeunes  gens  de  mon  caractere  de  faire  des  mouvements  rapides, 
de  ramener  quelques  capitaux  pour  leur  etablissement  apres  la  paix. 
C'est  alors  qu'il  faut  des  Bases  bien  solides  pour  §tre  respect^  dans  le 
Commerce. ...  I  find  myself  the  loser  by  the  Hispaniola  Revolution 
of  two  hundred  Joes  (1600  Dollars) ;  this  affects  me  in  beginning. 

I  must  speak  seriously  of  my  intentions;  after  this  voyage  —  it 
must  be  entirely  between  ourselves  —  I  must  be  fixed  in  Boston  for 
these  reasons;  my  mother's  property  will  constitute  part  of  my  capi- 
tal, she  will  give  it  to  me  on  no  other  terms.  I  have  here  a  great 
many  rich  friends  who  though  they  might  not  launch  out,  would 
readily  put  their  marks  on  the  back  of  a  note  for  an  occasion,  this  is 
a  good  introduction  to  the  Bank,  of  course,  a  key  to  the  False  Capi- 
tal mode  of  Operation.  I  am  determined  to  have  a  Southern  Con- 
nection, on  account  of  French  business;  they  are  not  fond  of  cold 

170 


FEDERALISM  AND  NEUTRAL  TRADE 

fingers.  I  am  resolved  never  to  connect  myself,  but  with  men 
stamped  from  infancy  with  Industry  and  determined  like  myself  to 
devote  every  instant  of  time  to  business.  My  connections  in  Ja- 
maica are  King's  Contractors  —  they  will  commission  whomever 
established  at  the  southward,  with  the  purchase  of  flour  and  bis- 
cuit for  that  Island;  this  is  an  object  I  am  determined  never  to  see 
the  West  Indies  again. 

Many  were  the  gay  adventures  enjoyed  by  young 
shipmasters  like  John  Bailey  of  Marblehead,  whose 
fresh,  confident  features  are  preserved  for  us  in  minia- 
tures and  portraits  by  French  artists.  One  form  of 
speculation  was  to  purchase  French  prizes  in  American 
ports,  and  take  them  to  Mauritius  for  sale.  Such  a  one 
the  captured  English  snow  George,  with  a  cargo  of  pro- 
visions invoiced  at  $25,000,  was  bid  in  at  Boston  in 
1796  for  $8000  by  Crowell  Hatch,  one  of  the  Colum- 
bia's owners,  and  placed  under  the  command  of  his 
young  kinsman  John  Boit,  Jr.,  who  had  just  returned 
from  his  remarkable  voyage  around  the  world.  The 
George  was  foul,  slow,  and  leaky.  Near  the  Cape  of 
Good  Hope,  Captain  Boit  got  a  spare  topsail  under 
her  bows,  which  decreased  the  leak  from  1500  to  400 
strokes  per  hour;  but  as  he  neared  Port  Louis,  Mau- 
ritius, the  snow  sailed  more  and  more  slowly,  the  leak 
gained,  and  the  crew  became  weak  from  pumping. 
A  signal  of  distress  —  the  ensign  in  a  wiff  —  brought 
out  a  naval  detail  from  the  French  authorities,  to 
relieve  the  men  at  the  pumps,  and  saved  her  from 
foundering  within  sight  of  land.  Captain  Boit  sold 
his  cargo  to  the  Government  at  a  "ruinous  advance," 
hove  down  his  vessel,  found  the  bottom  worm-eaten 
and  almost  destitute  of  oakum,  but  cheerfully  "  painted 
the  old  Snow  up  as  fine  as  a  fiddle,  &  on  the  2Oth  of 
May  del'd  her  up  to  Monsieur  Hicks  —  a  hard  bar- 
gain on  his  side,  I  must  confess! . . .  God  send  I  may 

171 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

never  sail  in  the  like  of  her  again!"  He  then  laid  out 
the  proceeds  in  coffee  and  East- India  goods,  which 
he  carried  to  Charleston,  South  Carolina,  for  another 
turnover,  in  a  chartered  ship. 

It  was  easy  enough  to  sell  provisions  in  France  at 
profiteer  rates,  but  quite  a  different  affair  to  collect 
payment.  The  adventures  of  Captain  Elijah  Cobb, 
of  Brewster,  illustrate  the  distinction.  His  brig  Jane 
of  Boston,  on  her  way  to  Cadiz,  was  captured  by  a 
French  frigate  and  sent  into  Brest,  early  in  1794.  The 
prize  court  released  her,  and  Cobb  made  a  contract  to 
sell  his  cargo  of  rice  and  flour  for  two  hundred  per  cent 
profit,  in  bills  of  exchange  on  Hamburg.  After  waiting 
a  month  for  the  bills  in  vain,  he  sent  the  Jane  home 
under  the  mate,  and  procuring  a  passport  from  Jean- 
bon  St.  Andr6,  went  to  Paris  with  an  armed  national 
courier,  traveling  day  and  night  to  escape  brigands. 
At  Paris  the  Terror  was  at  its  height.  The  authorities 
pretended  never  to  have  received  the  brig's  papers, 
and  deliberately  mislaid  the  certified  copies  which  the 
prudent  master  brought  with  him.  There  was  nothing 
left  but  to  interview  Robespierre,  who  called  him  a 
sacre  coquin,  but  gave  the  word  that  produced  his 
papers  and  bills.  Cobb  left  the  capital  just  before  the 
9th  Thermidor;  but  Joseph  Russell,  John  Higginson, 
and  Thomas  H.  Perkins,  of  Boston,  witnessed  the 
guillotining  of  Robespierre  in  the  Place  de  la  Con- 
corde. 

The  death  of  his  benefactor  so  reduced  the  market 
value  of  Captain  Cobb's  bills,  that  he  went  himself  to 
Hamburg  to  collect.  The  French  agent  there  had  be- 
gun to  protest  payment,  but  by  a  good  bluff  Cobb  had 
his  accepted,  and  remitted  the  funds  to  T.  Dickerson 
&  Sons,  London.  On  his  next  voyage  to  Havre,  with 
flour,  the  same  performance  had  to  be  repeated.  Two 

172 


FEDERALISM  AND  NEUTRAL  TRADE 

visits  to  Paris,  and  five  months'  dancing  attendance 
at  the  ministry  of  finance,  were  required  to  obtain  full 
payment.  Captain  Cobb  exchanged  the  silver  ingots 
with  which  his  debt  was  discharged,  for  three  thousand 
Spanish  doubloons,  which  he  managed  to  smuggle  out 
of  France  on  his  person  despite  the  chouans,  and  a 
strict  search  at  the  frontier. 


American  diplomatic  history,  in  the  period  1793- 
1815,  is  closely  interlocked  with  that  of  commerce  and 
of  all  maritime  pursuits.  Broadly  speaking,  one  may 
say  that  in  1793  maritime  Massachusetts  was  making 
up  her  mind  on  the  American  policy  toward  the  Euro- 
pean war.  By  1795  she  found  her  opinion  to  be  flatly 
pro-British;  in  1796  she  imposed  it  on  the  rest  of  the 
state,  and  in  1797  on  the  rest  of  the  nation. 

British  depredations  on  American  commerce,  in 
1793-94,  were  irritating  and  costly.  Other  things  be- 
ing equal,  maritime  Massachusetts,  a  lusty  young  rival 
to  the  mistress  of  the  seas,  would  have  helped  revolu- 
tionary France  break  British  sea-power.  But  other 
things  were  not  equal.  American  democracy,  that 
nine-lived  feline  which  the  merchants  had  petted 
in  1775  —  and  repeatedly  drowned  since  —  now  re- 
turned with  a  new  lover,  the  battle-scarred  French 
tomcat  Jacobinism ;  and  their  amorous  yowlings  made 
sleep  impossible  for  decent  merchants  in  Franklin 
Place.  They  were  disgusted  and  alarmed  by  Genet's 
impudence,  and  his  American  partisans'  lawlessness. 
The  successive  upheavals  In  France  showed  that  no 
substitute  could  there  be  found  for  the  London  money 
market;  and  in  1795  France  engulfed  Holland.  Fi- 
nally, the  Reign  of  Terror  and  the  politique  de  Van  III 

173 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

seemed  to  confirm  Burke's  warning,  that  the  French 
Revolution  was  an  international  menace.  Embattled 
France  became  an  object  of  horror  and  loathing,  as 
now  Soviet  Russia.  To  seat  Jacobinism  on  Neptune's 
throne,  because  of  British  enmity  to  American  ship- 
ping, would  merely  destroy  all  property.  "Civiliza- 
tion" was  the  issue. 

So  reasoned  New  England  Federalism;  an  alliance 
of  merchant-shipowner,  country  squire  and  Congre- 
gational clergy,  that  carried  everything  before  it  in 
Massachusetts.  The  first  test  came  with  Jay's  treaty. 
This  pact  of  November,  1794,  averted  a  war  with  Eng- 
land, and  secured  compensation  for  the  British  spoli- 
ations; but  renounced  neutral  rights  and  commercial 
equality,  in  terms  so  humiliating  "that  some  of  our 
respectable  men  have  . . .  joined  the  Jacobins,"  wrote 
Cabot.  Anti-British  feeling  flared  to  its  highest  point 
since  the  war.  At  a  word  from  the  French  consul,  a 
Boston  mob  sacked  and  burned  to  the  water's  edge  a 
Bermudian  privateer  in  the  harbor.  But  the  merchants 
soon  saw  the  deeper  issue  of  England,  law,  and  order 
against  France,  Jacobinism,  and  terror.  The  eloquence 
of  Harrison  Gray  Otis  wooed  the  Boston  democracy 
into  agreement.  Thereafter,  Boston  regularly  deliv- 
ered a  Federalist  majority  in  state  and  national  elec- 
tions. The  clergy  cowed  their  country  congregations 
with  tales  of  French  atheism  and  atrocity.  The  treaty 
was  ratified  and  carried  into  effect.1  John  Adams  was 

1  "  In  consequence  of  the  disposition  shown  in  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives of  the  Union  not  to  grant  the  supplies  for  carrying  the 
British  treaty  into  effect,  business  has  been  very  slack  for  these  two 
weeks.  All  new  appropriations  are  entirely  suspended.  The  alarm  is 
very  general  lest  the  dearest  interests  of  our  country  —  peace  and 
national  honor  —  should  be  sacrificed  to  party-spirit  and  Antifederal- 
ism."  (J.  &  T.  H.  Perkins  to  one  of  their  correspondents,  April  30, 
1796.)  Although  Jay's  treaty,  as  ratified,  did  not  permit  American  ves- 

174 


FEDERALISM  AND  NEUTRAL  TRADE 

elected  President,  and  Timothy  Pickering,  of  Salem, 
became  Secretary  of  State. 

French  spoliations  in  1797  and  Talleyrand's  treat- 
ment of  the  American  mission  discredited  Jefferson, 
made  the  Federalists  dangerously  popular,  and  en- 
abled them  in  the  name  of  patriotism  to  enforce  con- 
formity by  sedition  trials,  social  pressure,  and  other 
means  now  sadly  familiar.  There  would,  in  fact,  have 
been  a  war  with  France  in  1799,  had  not  President 
Adams  defied  Hamilton  and  the  Essex  Junto  by  sud- 
denly adopting  a  pacific  policy.  Thereby  began  the 
feud  between  the  Adams  family  and  State  Street. 

Although  war  was  not  declared  against  France,  a 
state  of  war  existed  on  the  sea,  and  was  very  popular 
in  the  Massachusetts  seaports.  By  local  initiative  the 
sloop-of-war  Merrimack  and  the  frigate  Essex  were 
built  at  Newburyport  and  Salem.  The  frigate  Consti- 
tution (Boston-built,  but  Philadelphia-designed)  had 
been  launched  in  view  of  an  immense,  enthusiastic 
crowd  the  previous  year.  A  subscription  loan  of  $136,- 
500  from  the  Boston  merchants  floated  the  frigate 
Boston  in  1799.  Acts  of  Congress,  now  completely 
under  the  control  of  Hamilton  and  the  Essex  Junto, 
permitted  American  merchantmen  to  strike  back  at 
their  French  tormentors,  and  to  make  prize  of  any 
French  armed  vessel. 

A  typical  cruise  for  a  half-freighter,  half-trader,  was 
that  of  the  letter-of-marque  ship  Mount  Vernon  of 
Salem,  355  tons,  20  guns  and  50  men.  She  belonged 
to  'King'  Derby,  and  was  commanded  by  his  son, 
E.  H.  Derby,  Jr.  Leaving  Salem  on  July  14,  1799, 

sels  to  trade  with  British  colonies,  the  regular  quotations  of  insurance 
rates  to  Jamaica,  Bahamas,  Quebec,  Nova  Scotia,  and  Newfoundland, 
in  Boston  papers  of  1796-97,  proves  that  the  trade  was  going  on  never- 
theless. 

175 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

with  a  complete  outfit  of  light  sails,  including  fore-  and 
main-topgallant  studdingsails,  square  spritsail  on  the 
jibboom,  ringtail  and  steering-sail  rigged  below  the 
spanker,  she  made  Corvo  in  the  remarkably  short 
time  of  eight  days,  seven  hours.  After  a  running  fight 
with  a  French  frigate,  a  brush  with  a  heavily  armed 
lateener,  and  a  regular  battle  with  another  off  Alge- 
ciras,  she  made  Gibraltar  in  seventeen  days,  twelve 
hours,!  from  Salem.  Her  last  assailant  struck  ensign 
and  pennant.  Captain  Derby  did  not  stop  to  take 
him,  but  put  into  Gibraltar  with  the  satisfaction  of 
having  "flogged  the  vessel  in  full  view  of  the  English 
fleet." 

At  Gibraltar  colonial  produce  such  as  sugar,  with 
which  the  Mount  Vernon  was  laden,  was  a  drug  in  the 
market.  Captain  Derby  therefore  joined  John  Wil- 
liams, of  Baltimore,1  in  chartering  and  loading  a  brig; 
and  on  August  10  the  two  vessels  left  for  the  Levant. 
Touching  at  Palermo,  but  finding  the  market  poor, 
they  continued  to  Naples,  where  Captain  Derby  sold 
the  Mount  Vernon's  cargo,  valued  at  $43,275,  for 
$120,000.  "My  sales  have  been  handsome,  though 
not  so  great  as  I  could  have  wished,"  he  wrote  his 
father. 

Exchange  on  London  being  disadvantageous,  Cap- 
tain Derby  made  an  investment  of  his  gains,  typical  of 
this  troubled  period.  Fifty  thousand  dollars  were  laid 
aside  for  wines  and  silks;  but  it  was  some  time  before 
they  could  be  delivered.  Yet  even  the  hospitality  of 
Nelson,  and  the  smiles  of  Lady  Hamilton,  could  not 
tempt  Captain  Derby  to  tarry  in  Naples.  He  pur- 
chased two  new  polacca-rigged  ships  for  sixteen  thou- 

1  Probably  of  the  Roxbury  Williamses,  who  settled  in  Baltimore  at 
this  period.  Amos  Williams,  of  Baltimore,  was  part  owner  with  the 
Peabodys  of  the  schooner  Equality  of  Salem. 

I76 


FEDERALISM  AND  NEUTRAL  TRADE 

sand  dollars,  and  convoyed  them  in  the  Mount  Vernon 
up  the  Adriatic  (beating  off  two  Turkish  pirates  en 
route),  to  Manfredonia.  There  he  loaded  wheat,  which 
was  carried  around  Italy  and  sold  at  Leghorn.  The 
profits  on  this  venture  paid  for  the  two  polaccas  with 
thirty  thousand  dollars  to  boot,  only  two  and  a  half 
months  after  their  purchase.  In  less  than  eleven 
months'  time  Captain  Derby  had  made  a  net  profit 
of  over  a  hundred  thousand  dollars  on  an  investment 
of  forty- three  thousand. 

The  European  war  did  not  create,  it  merely  ex- 
panded, this  Massachusetts-Mediterranean  traffic, 
which  dates  back  to  Captain  John  Smith.  The  reex- 
port thither  of  Oriental  goods  began  about  1790,  when 
the  glut  of  tea  at  Salem  and  Boston  forced  their  mer- 
chants to  seek  new  outlets.  But  this  coasting  trade  of 
the  Mount  Vernon  was  new,  and  typical  of  war  condi- 
tions. Schooners  of  seventy  tons  or  under  —  like  the 
Raven  of  Marblehead  and  the  Lidia  of  Newburyport  — 
crossed  the  Atlantic  with  a  cargo  of  salt  fish,  sugar,  and 
rum,  bought  goods  cheap  in  one  ^European  port,  sold 
them  dear  in  another,  and  if  they  were  so  lucky  as  to 
avoid  capture,  cleared  several  times  their  cost  in  one 
voyage.  Frequently  they  were  sold  abroad  to  avoid 
capture,  and  sometimes  their  officers  and  men  stayed 
with  them.  The  brig  Salem  of  Boston,  for  instance, 
after  a  voyage  to  Amsterdam,  Cadiz,  and  San  Sebas- 
tian, was  sold  to  French  parties  at  Bordeaux.  Captain 
Jeremiah  Mayo,  using  her  American  papers,  then  took 
a  cargo  of  claret  to  Morlaix,  where  it  brought  three  or 
four  times  its  cost  in  the  Gironde. 

Wheresoever  in  Europe  a  Massachusetts  vessel  was 
disposed  of,  it  was  easy  for  the  officers  and  crew  to 
pick  up  a  passage  home,  as  the  following  letter  of  a 
Beverly  shipmaster  relates : 

177 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

Li[s]bon.  May  ye  18,  1793 
Kind  &  Loving  Wife 

I  now  take  this  operty.  to  inform  you  of  my  well  fair  &  good  state 
of  health.  Blessed  be  God  for  the  same;  hoping  this  will  find  you 
&  fammele  in  as  good  health  as  it  Leaves  me  at  preasent ;  after  I  sold 
the  schooner  hope  at  Bilboa  I  wated  for  to  get  a  passage  to  Amer- 
ica but  cold  not  get  a  passage  in  a  vessel  that  was  coming  Directly 
hoom;  therefore  I  took  passag  with  Capt.  Joshua  Orne  to  Lisbone 
and  from  thence  I  expected  to  go  with  him  to  Marblehead ;  but  find- 
ing a  snow  near  bound  for  Boston  which  wanted  a  mate  and  so  I 
shipped  with  her,  and  shall  sale  tomorrow  if  nothing  disapoints  us, 
I  have  sent  you  By  Cap.  Joshua  Orne:  7  dozn  &  10  silk  handchafs  2 
Long  Looking  glasses  a  dozn  of  knives  &  forks  one  half  of  which  is  for 
your  brother  Beckford  and  a  Little  Gun  and  I  Expect  to  send  sum 
other  things  which  I  shall  put  on  bord  this  Night  and  you  Go  for 
them  or  send  sum  boddey  with  an  order,  you  may  expect  me  in  a  few 
days  after  you  receive  this  if  nothing  happens  to  us ... 
from  your  ever  loving  husband  till  Death 

JONATHAN  BASEY 

During  the  first  half  of  the  Revolutionary-Na- 
poleonic wars,  and  until  1806,  the  yoke  of  Britain's 
sea-power  was  an  easy  one.  No  interference  was 
made  with  broken  voyages  or  with  neutrals  trading 
between  the  Baltic,  the  Hanse  towns,  and  France. 
"I  find  several  vessels  have  been  advantageously  em- 
ployed in  plying  between  Hamburg,  Rotterdam,  and 
France,  and  that  neutral  vessels  have  been  permitted 
a  free  trade  even  from  England,"  writes  James  Per- 
kins to  his  brother  at  Bordeaux,  in  February,  1795. 
He  is  sending  out  the  ship  Betsy,  with  a  cargo  of  rice, 
which  is  to  serve  as  capital  for  continuing  the  carrying 
trade  between  northern  and  French  ports.  American 
entries  at  Hamburg  increased  from  35  in  1791  to  192 
in  1799;  and  after  Hamburg  was  closed  to  American 
shipping  in  1804,  vessels  entered  at  Tonning  in  Schles- 
wig-Holstein,  or  at  Ltibeck.  At  Amsterdam  there  were 
1 60  American  entries  in  1801. 

178 


_ 

>  .2 

H    T) 


FEDERALISM  AND  NEUTRAL  TRADE 

This  North-European  trade  was  not  without  its  cul- 
tural contacts.  "This  day  my  box  from  Hamburg 
arrived  with  the  proceeds  of  my  Coffee,"  writes  Dr. 
Bentley  in  his  Salem  diary  for  1806.  "The  good  Pro- 
fessor has  furnished  me  with  great  economy  with  some 
of  the  best  Books  which  his  country  has  yielded." 
Thus  German  erudition  entered  New  England.  Dr. 
Bentley  was  one  of  the  American  correspondents  of 
Professor  Ebeling,  of  Hamburg,  buying  for  his  learned 
friend  numerous  imprints  of  the  smaller  New  England 
presses,  which  have  disappeared  in  the  country  of  their 
production.  The  books  and  coffee  which  the  good 
Doctor  cast  upon  the  waters  were  indeed  found  after 
many  days,  and  by  his  alma  mater;  for  Professor 
Ebeling's  incomparable  collection  of  Americana  was 
purchased  by  Israel  Thorndike,  merchant  of  Beverly, 
and  presented  to  the  Harvard  College  Library. 

If  Massachusetts  had  the  same  share  of  the  Ham- 
burg trade  as  of  Baltic  commerce,  more  than  half  the 
American  entries  were  owned  in  her  ports.  For  in 
1802,  out  of  eighty-one  vessels  that  passed  Elsinore  dur- 
ing the  open  season,  twenty-one  belonged  to  Salem, 
fourteen  to  Boston,  eight  to  Newburyport,  eight  to 
New  York,  seven  to  Providence,  five  to  Marblehead, 
four  to  Gloucester,  two  to  Charleston,  and  one  each 
to  Philadelphia,  Norfolk,  New  Bedford,  and  Salisbury.1 
Many  arrived  not  from  their  home  port,  but  from  Lis- 
bon, Cadiz,  the  Western  Islands,  the  West  Indies, 
Amsterdam,  and  Bremen;  bringing  nankeens,  pepper, 
sugar,  fruit,  coffee,  tea,  rum,  wine,  cotton,  indigo,  to- 
bacco, and  mahogany  to  Copenhagen  and  St.  Peters- 
burg. They  cleared,  laden  with  iron,  hemp,  flax,  cord- 
age and  sailcloth,  for  all  parts  of  the  world.  Several 
were  schooners  and  brigantines  under  eighty  tons 

1  From  a  "  Sound  list  "  brought  home  by  one  of  the  shipmasters. 

179 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

burthen.  This  type  of  commerce  is  generally  called 
the  neutral  carrying  trade;  but  it  was  more  than  a 
carrying  trade  as  the  term  is  now  understood,  for  the 
vessels  did  not  merely  take  freight  at  inflated  figures ; 
they  bought  and  sold  goods  on  their  owners'  account, 
and  made  immense  sums,  which  no  statistics  record, 
by  the  repeated  turnovers. 

The  European  trade  was  also  vitally  interlocked 
with  the  East-India  and  China  trade,  that  was  so  rap- 
idly expanding  in  the  closing  years  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  Unless  an  East-Indiaman  made  Madeira  her 
first  port  of  call,  she  generally  acquired  specie  in  Eu- 
rope, or  a  cargo  suitable  for  Bengal,  by  selling  the 
proceeds  of  a  former  voyage,  together  with  West-India 
goods,  salt  provisions,  fish,  and  Southern  staples,  at 
any  northern  or  Mediterranean  port.  "The  speedy 
conversion  of  your  present  lading  into  dollars  must 
be  a  governing  object  in  your  operation,"  state  the  in- 
structions of  J.  &  T.  H.  Perkins  to  one  of  their  super- 
cargoes, outward-bound  with  East-  and  West- India 
goods  to  the  Mediterranean  and  Calcutta. 

Hardly  a  port  of  Europe  there  was,  from  Archangel 
to  Trieste  where  the  Yankee  trader  was  not  as  familiar 
as  the  seasons;  hardly  an  occasion  where  he  was  not 
present,  with  something  to  swap.  As  Nelson's  fleet 
lay  licking  its  wounds  after  Trafalgar,  who  should 
heave  in  sight  but  the  ship  Ann  Alexander  of  New 
Bedford,  Captain  Loum  Snow,  with  a  cargo  of  lumber, 
flour,  and  apples  —  just  what  the  fleet  needed !  Super- 
cargoes founded  mercantile  houses  in  foreign  ports. 
Thomas  Hickling,  of  Boston,  settled  in  the  Azores 
shortly  after  1780.  Preble  &  Co.  (Ebenezer  and 
Henry,  brothers  of  the  Commodore)  were  soliciting 
consignments  at  Dieppe,  in  1804.  George  Loring,  of 
Hingham,  married  a  beautiful  Spanish  girl  in  the 

1 80 


FEDERALISM  AND  NEUTRAL  TRADE 

seven  teen-nineties;  his  sons  formed  the  firm  of  Loring 
Brothers  of  Malaga,  which  fifty  years  later  was  oper- 
ating Massachusetts-built  clipper  ships  under  the 
Spanish  flag. 


The  seamen  of  colonial  and  post- Revolutionary 
Massachusetts  thought  they  knew  the  ropes  of  Euro- 
pean trade,  but  the  war  led  their  sons  to  new  ports. 
Smyrna,  the  mart  of  Asia  Minor,  became  the  final 
residence  of  a  loyalist  member  of  the  Perkins  family, 
with  whom  J.  &  T.  H.  Perkins  opened  profitable  rela- 
tions before  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  obtain- 
ing Turkish  opium  for  Canton.  A  convincing  contrast 
of  Yankee  enterprise  with  Eastern  lethargy,  is  the 
trade  followed  by  Ebenezer  Parsons  for  several  years; 
loading  coffee  at  Mocha  in  the  Red  Sea,  and  circum- 
navigating Africa  to  sell  it  at  Smyrna,  for  three  and 
four  hundred  per  cent  profit. 

The  west  coast  of  South  America  had  already  made 
the  acquaintance  of  Yankee  whalers  and  fur-traders, 
when  the  Napoleonic  wars  opened  the  east  coast  as 
well  to  Massachusetts  vessels.  The  first  North  Ameri- 
can merchantman  to  enter  the  River  Plate  appears  to 
have  been  the  brig  Alert  of  Salem,  owned  by  Dudley 
L.  Pickman  and  others,  and  commanded  by  Captain 
Robert  Gray,  of  Columbia  fame.  She  was  captured  by 
a  French  privateer  and  carried  into  Montevideo  late 
in  1798.  The  Spanish  officials  fitted  her  out  as  a  priva- 
teer under  their  own  colors,  but  Captain  Gray  was 
released,  and  returned  voluntarily  in  1801  in  command 
of  the  schooner  James,  after  touching  at  Rio  de  Janeiro. 
Between  February  and  July,  1802,  eighteen  Massa- 
chusetts vessels,  and  twenty-six  from  other  North 

181 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

American  ports,  brought  mixed  cargoes  to  the  River 
Plate,  and  took  away  hides  and  specie ;  portending  the 
great  hides  and  lumber  traffic  of  later  years  between 
New  England,  Argentina,  and  Uruguay.  In  1810, 
William  Gray  was  reexporting  "  Buenos  Ayres  Hydes  " 
and  Peruvian  bark  from  Boston  to  Tunis. 

Several  Massachusetts  men  entered  the  service  of 
the  new  republics.  Dr.  Franklin  Rawson,  of  Essex 
County,  founded  a  distinguished  Argentinian  family. 
The  name  of  Benjamin  Franklin  Seaver,  of  Boston, 
killed  in  battle  while  second  in  command  of  the  Argen- 
tine fleet,  is  commemorated  in  a  street  of  Buenos  Aires ; 
and  William  P.  White,  of  Pittsfield,  who  established  a 
mercantile  agency  there  as  early  as  1804,  gave  such 
effective  aid  to  the  cause  as  to  be  called  the  "father  of 
the  Argentine  Navy."  A  little  later,  Paul  Delano,  one 
of  the  twenty-one  children  of  Nathan  Delano,  of  Fair- 
haven,  commanded  the  Chilean  frigate  Independencia, 
and  applied  his  Yankee  ingenuity  to  the  construction 
of  port  works  in  open  roadsteads.  William  Delano,  of 
the  same  maritime  family,  served  on  the  staff  of  Gen- 
eral San  Martin.  Both  remained  in  Chile,  where  their 
descendants  are  prominent  citizens  to-day. 

Japan  first  saw  the  American  flag  in  1791,  when  the 
famous  Boston  sloop  Lady  Washington,  Captain  Ken- 
drick,  accompanied  by  the  Grace  of  New  York,  Cap- 
tain Douglas,  entered  a  southern  Japanese  harbor  in 
the  hope  of  selling  sea-otter.  But  the  natives  knew  not 
the  use  of  fur,  and  no  business  was  done.  It  was  the 
foreign  policy  of  the  French  Committee  of  Public 
Safety  that  gained  American  commerce  its  first  ex- 
change with  the  forbidden  kingdom.  For  almost  two 
centuries  the  Dutch  East  India  Company  had  enjoyed 
the  exclusive  right  of  sending  one  ship  a  year  from 
Batavia  to  trade  at  Nagasaki,  when,  in  1795,  French 

182 


FEDERALISM  AND  NEUTRAL  TRADE 

arms  and  propaganda  transformed  the  Netherlands 
into  the  Batavian  Republic,  an  ally  and  vassal  to 
France.  Fearing  capture  of  its  vessels  by  British  war- 
ships, the  Dutch  East  India  Company  for  four  succes- 
sive years  chartered  American  vessels  for  the  annual 
cruise.  The  first,  apparently,  to  have  this  honor  was 
the  ship  Eliza  of  New  York,  of  which  there  is  a  con- 
temporary Japanese  painting,  showing  her  being  light- 
ered off  a  rock  in  Nagasaki  Harbor,  in  1798,  by  several 
dozen  small  boats.  In  1799  the  Perkins's  ship  Frank- 
lin of  Boston,  James  Devereux  master,  was  the  lucky 
vessel ;  and  of  her  voyage  from  Batavia  to  Japan  and 
back  we  have  a  full  account,  from  Captain  Dever- 
eux's  clerk,  George  Cleveland.  On  entering  Japanese 
waters  she  hoisted  the  Dutch  ensign,  fired  prescribed 
salutes  of  seven  to  thirteen  guns  each  on  passing  seven 
different  points,  and  another  on  anchoring  in  Nagasaki 
Harbor.  The  Yankee  officers  had  to  bend  almost  dou- 
ble when  Japanese  officials  came  on  board,  and  to  com- 
ply with  minute  and  rigorous  harbor  regulations  dur- 
ing their  four  months'  stay.  But  they  were  allowed, 
carefully  guarded,  to  visit  the  town,  and  to  bring  back 
private  adventures  of  cabinets,  tea-trays,  and  carved 
screens  which  are  still  treasured  in  Salem  homes.  In 
1800  the  ship  Massachusetts  of  Boston  received  the 
annual  charter  for  the  colossal  sum  of  $100,000,  it  was 
rumored ;  and  in  1801  the  ship  Margaret  of  Salem  pulled 
off  the  prize.  She  was  apparently  the  last  American 
vessel  to  be  received  in  a  Japanese  harbor  until  Com- 
modore Perry  broke  the  isolation  of  Nippon. . 


In  1801,  with  the  election  of  Jefferson  to  the  presi- 
dency, the  national  government  fell  into  the  hands  of 

183 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

a  combination  partial  to  France,  and  professedly  un- 
friendly to  maritime  commerce.  But  Jefferson's  mod- 
eration agreeably  disappointed  maritime  Massachu- 
setts. The  Hamiltonian  system  of  fishing  bounties, 
drawbacks,  discriminating  tonnage  duties,  and  friend- 
ship with  England  continued  unimpaired.  Barbary 
corsairs  were  forced  to  respect  the  American  flag. 
Jefferson  chose  his  Attorney-General  and  his  Secretary 
of  War  in  Massachusetts,  and  but  for  the  illness  of 
Jacob  Crowninshield,  whose  family  had  been  consist- 
ently Republican,  he  would  have  had  a  Secretary  of  the 
Navy  from  the  same  state. 

Early  in  1802  Napoleon  made  peace  with  England, 
and  the  European  trade  slackened  somewhat;  but,  of 
course,  Massachusetts  could  not  blame  this  on  Jeffer- 
son. And  in  1804,  despite  the  raving  of  Federalist  poli- 
ticians, the  commonwealth  cast  its  electoral  vote  for 
the  great  Virginian.  No  doubt  the  maritime  interests 
would  have  become  reconciled  to  his  administration 
had  not  a  renewal  of  the  war  revived  the  passions  and 
the  difficulties  of  the  previous  decade. 

England  and  Napoleon,  by  a  series  of  Orders  in 
Council  and  Imperial  Decrees,  began  attempting  to 
drive  neutral  shipping  from  each  other's  ports.  As 
British  sea-power  tightened,  and  Napoleon  extended 
his  control  over  continental  Europe,  it  became  no 
longer  easy  for  American  shipping  to  play  both  sides. 
Hitherto,  the  British  prohibition  of  neutral  trading 
between  her  enemies  and  their  colonies  had  been 
evaded  by  the  "broken  voyage"  —  bringing  French 
colonial  produce  to  Boston  or  Salem,  paying  duty,  re- 
loading it  even  on  the  same  vessel,  receiving  the  draw- 
back, and  proceeding  to  France.  But  in  1805  Sir  Wil- 
liam Scott  made  an  example  of  the  ship  Essex  of  Salem,1 

1  The  same  vessel  which  met  a  tragic  fate  in  the  Red  Sea,  in  1806. 

184 


FEDERALISM  AND  NEUTRAL  TRADE 

in  a  decision  which  remains  a  landmark  in  interna- 
tional law,  so-called.  Her  voyage  from  Barcelona  to 
Havana  via  Derby  Wharf  was  declared  one  continuous 
voyage,  and  the  cargo  confiscated. 

The  merchants  of  Boston  and  Salem  loudly  pro- 
tested. But  before  long  they  discovered  that  the  bark 
of  the  Essex  decision  was  worse  than  its  bite.  An  old 
drawback  book  in  the  Plymouth  custom-house  records 
shows  what  indirect  trade  was  going  on  in  1806  and 
1807.  The  brig  Eliza  Hardy  of  Plymouth  enters  her 
home  port  from  Bordeaux,  on  May  20,  1806,  with  a 
cargo  of  claret  wine.  Part  of  it  is  immediately  ree'x- 
ported  to  Martinique  in  the  schooner  Pilgrim,  which 
also  carries  a  consignment  of  brandy  that  came  from 
Alicante  in  the  brig  Commerce,  and  another  of  gin  that 
came  from  Rotterdam  in  the  barque  Hannah  of  Ply- 
mouth. The  rest  of  the  Eliza  Hardy's  claret  is  taken 
to  Philadelphia  by  coasters,  and  thence  reexported  in 
seven  different  vessels  to  Havana,  Santiago  de  Cuba,  St. 
Thomas,  and  Batavia.  The  brig  Rufus  King,  about  the 
same  time,  brought  into  Plymouth  a  cargo  of  coffee  from 
St.  Thomas.  It  is  transferred  to  Boston,  and  thence 
reexported  to  Rotterdam  and  Amsterdam  in  four  differ- 
ent vessels.  The  barque  Hannah  also  brought  wine  and 
brandy  from  Tarragona,  which  is  reexported  from  Bos- 
ton to  Havana  and  Madeira.  The  schooner  Honest  Tom 
left  Plymouth  for  Bordeaux  on  December  21,  1806, 
with  sugar  and  coffee  that  another  vessel  had  brought 
from  the  West  Indies.  She  returned  to  Plymouth  on 
May  1 8, 1807,  with  wine  and  brandy  which  flowed  from 
Boston  to  Demerara  in  the  ship  Jason,  to  the  East  In- 
dies in  the  ship  Jenny,  and  to  San  Domingo  in  the  brig 
Eunice.  Thus  interposing  a  coastal  voyage  between  the 
two  ends  of  an  essentially  unneutral  traffic  evidently 
confused  or  satisfied  the  British  admiralty. 

185 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

President  Jefferson  stood  up  for  neutral  rights,  and 
his  representatives  at  London  did  their  best  to  have  the 
Essex  decision  rescinded.  But  before  anything  could 
be  done,  new  and  more  stringent  orders  and  decrees 
were  issued  by  England  and  Napoleon ;  and  in  1807  the 
country  was  stirred  by  an  impressment  outrage  on 
the  U.S.S.  Chesapeake.  Had  Jefferson  then  called  for 
a  declaration  of  war,  Massachusetts  would  have  ac- 
cepted war  with  good  grace.  Instead,  he  chose  a 
policy  which,  without  coercing  the  belligerent  nations, 
sacrificed  the  commercial  profits  of  Massachusetts 
and  her  political  good-will.  December  22,  1807,  the 
date  that  Jefferson's  embargo  went  into  effect,  begins 
a  new  period  in  American  maritime  history. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

EMBARGO  AND  WAR 
1807-1815 

Our  ships  all  in  motion  once  whitened  the  ocean, 
They  sailed  and  returned  with  a  cargo; 
Now  doomed  to  decay,  they  have  fallen  a  prey 
To  Jefferson  —  worms  —  and  embargo. 

THUS  jingled  a  newspaper  poet  at  Newburyport  in 
1808.  It  was  bad  enough  trying  to  feel  out  a  channel 
between  orders  in  council  and  imperial  decrees :  but  to 
have  one's  fleet  scuttled  by  act  of  Congress,  on  the 
pretense  of  protecting  it,  seemed  outrageous  and  hypo- 
critical. 

The  Embargo  Act,  which  remained  in  force  from 
December  22,  1807,  to  March  15,  1809,  forbade  any 
American  vessel  to  clear  from  an  American  harbor  for 
a  foreign  port,  and  placed  coasting  and  fishing  vessels 
under  heavy  bonds  not  to  land  their  cargoes  outside 
the  United  States.  Another  act,  which  went  into  effect 
at  the  same  time,  forbade  the  importation  of  many 
British  goods.  Nothing  prevented  American  vessels 
then  abroad  from  entering  a  home  port,  but  once  there, 
they  could  not  legally  depart  for  a  foreign  voyage. 

There  were  many  leaks  in  the  embargo.  For  a  time, 
by  special  dispensation  of  the  President,  merchants 
were  allowed  to  send  abroad  for  property  they  had 
already  purchased.  An  immense  smuggling  trade  went 
on  over  the  Canadian  and  Florida  borders.  Vessels  al- 
ready abroad  did  not  return  until  the  embargo  was 
repealed,  if  they  could  help  it.  The  coast  was  more 
heavily  guarded  by  federal  officials  and  soldiers  than 

187 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

during  the  War  of  1812,  but  nevertheless  a  number 
of  vessels  managed  to  slip  out.  Captain  Charles  C. 
Doten,  of  Plymouth,  performed  two  notable  feats  of 
this  sort.  One  dark  night,  in  a  southeast  rainstorm 
that  drove  the  water-front  guards  to  cover,  he  re- 
rigged  the  schooner  Hannah,  which  had  been  'stripped 
to  a  girtline'  by  the  collector  of  the  port,  with  the 
sails  and  rigging  of  another  vessel,  and  piloted  her 
safely  out  of  Plymouth  Bay.  Later  he  took  the  brig 
Hope  out  of  Provincetown  in  a  northeast  gale,  hotly 
pursued  and  fired  upon  by  the  revenue  cutter;  sold 
vessel  and  cargo  of  fish  at  St.  Lucia  for  twenty-five 
thousand  dollars,  and  brought  it  home  in  the  form  of 
Spanish  doubloons,  sewed  into  his  clothing.  The  em- 
bargo did  not  kill  Massachusetts  commerce,  then ;  but 
suspended  at  least  half  of  it,  and  rendered  the  rest  more 
furtive,  difficult,  and  hazardous  than  it  ever  would 
have  been  under  mere  orders  in  council  and  imperial 
decrees. 

At  the  time  the  embargo  was  laid,  Massachusetts1 
was  the  principal  shipowning  commonwealth  in 
America.  Her  total  tonnage  per  capita  was  more  than 
twice  that  of  any  other  state.  Her  registered  tonnage 
in  foreign  trade  in  1807,  310,310  tons,  was  thirty- 
seven  per  cent  of  the  total  for  the  United  States,  and 
more  than  twice  that  of  her  nearest  competitor,  New 
York.  In  coasting  trade  she  was  also  first,  although 
her  proportion  was  slightly  less.  Her  fishing  fleet, 
62,214  tons,  was  eighty-eight  per  cent  of  the  total;  and 
although  there  was  nothing  in  the  embargo  acts  to 
prevent  fishing,  loss  of  the  foreign  market  put  the 

1  See  statistics  in  Appendix.  The  figures  here  quoted  for  the  state 
include  Maine;  those  quoted  for  ports  include  minor  ports  in  the  custom 
district  of  that  name.  Whaling  vessels  are  apparently  included  in  the 
foreign  tonnage. 

188 


O 
oo 


EMBARGO  AND  WAR 

greater  part  of  the  fleet  out  of  commission.  The  same 
applied  to  the  whaling.  In  all  these  branches  of  ship- 
ping the  gains  during  the  profitable  years  of  neutral 
trade  had  been  tremendous.  Boston  had  passed  Phila- 
delphia, and  become  second  only  to  New  York  for 
amount  of  tonnage  owned.  Following  Baltimore  and 
Charleston;  Portland,  Salem,  and  Newburyport  were 
respectively  the  sixth,  seventh,  and  ninth  shipowning 
communities  in  the  United  States.  The  minor  ports 
of  Massachusetts,  tempted  by  the  rich  freights  and 
turnovers  of  neutral  commerce,  had  increased  their 
fleet  considerably  in  the  last  few  years.1  Adopting 
Adam  Seybert's  estimate,  that  the  American  merchant 
marine  in  1801  was  earning  at  least  fifty  dollars  per  ton 
annually,  the  Massachusetts  fleet  of  1807  was  bringing 
home  about  fifteen  and  a  half  million  dollars  a  year  in 
freight  money  alone,  an  amount  far  greater  than  the 
capital  value  of  the  fleet  that  earned  it.  Congress 
ordered  the  shipowners  to  forego  this  colossal  income 
—  equal  to  the  entire  federal  revenue  in  1806  —  as  well 
as  the  greater  gains  made  by  buying  cheap  and  selling 
dear,  in  order  to  save  their  vessels  from  capture. 
Could  the  gain  balance  the  loss? 

This  was  a  burning  question  in  1808,  and  continues 
to  divide  historians  to  this  day.  There  were  many  in 
Massachusetts  who  agreed  with  Jefferson,  but  more 
who  did  not.  John  Bromfield,  supercargo  by  profes- 
sion and  a  Federalist  in  politics,  wrote  from  London  in 

1  Plymouth  tonnage,  for  instance,  had  just  doubled  since  1800.  In 
1804  Plymouth  had  eleven  entries  from  Portugal,  one  from  Spain,  one 
from  Cape  Verde  Islands,  two  from  Russia,  ten  from  Martinique,  and 
ten  from  smaller  West  Indian  Islands  —  all  schooners.  In  1805  she 
exported  almost  half  a  million  pounds  of  sugar  to  Holland.  New  Bedford 
had  increased  fifty  per  cent,  to  over  25,000  tons.  Of  her  ninety  to  one 
hundred  square-rigged  vessels,  only  twelve  were  whalers.  See  chapters 
x  and  xi  for  the  neutral  trade  of  Marblehead  and  Newburyport. 

189 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

1808,  "It  was  certainly  a  very  well-timed  restriction 
upon  our  commerce,  and  has  undoubtedly  saved  his 
political  opponents  from  the  loss  of  property  to  an 
immense  amount."  The  Republican  Crowninshields 
defended  the  embargo,  and  William  Gray,  a  Federal- 
ist, and  the  largest  individual  shipowner  in  the  United 
States,  rallied  to  it  as  a  necessary  measure  of  self- 
protection.  His  Federalist  neighbors  retorted  by  accus- 
ing him  of  profiteering  from  his  stock  on  hand.  This 
charge  he  denied :  and  any  statement  from  a  man  with 
the  simple  honesty  and  independence  of  William  Gray 
carries  weight..  He  sacrificed  personal  comfort  and 
social  position  by  his  stand.  Yet  even  Mr.  Gray  did 
not  see  fit  to  order  home  one  of  his  vessels,  the  ship 
Wells,  which  left  Salem  eighteen  days  before  the  em- 
bargo was  laid,  and  remained  abroad  making  money 
for  her  owner  while  it  endured.  Marblehead  remained 
faithful  to  embargo  and  Republicanism,  despite  her 
growing  commerce.  As  Salem  was  Federalist,  Marble- 
head  was  naturally  the  contrary;1  but  it  seems  that 
Marblehead  was  somewhat  favored  during  the  em- 
bargo. The  local  collector  continued  to  issue  San 
Domingo  bonds,  an  indication  that  he  was  allowing 
vessels  to  clear  for  the  West  Indies.2 

In  general,  the  verdict  of  maritime  Massachusetts 
was  thumbs  down  on  Jefferson  and  his  "terrapin" 

1  Frequently,  throughout  the  Federalist  period,  small  seaports  that 
were  rivals  to  a  near-by  prosperous  and  Federalist  center  of  commerce, 
voted  Republican;  Dorchester,  Weymouth,  Fairhaven,  and  Dighton, 
for  example. 

1  Custom-house  records,  searched  for  me  by  Miss  E.  R.  Trefry.  The 
act  of  Feb.  28,  1806,  required  vessels  clearing  for  certain  parts  of  the 
West  Indies  to  be  bonded  against  trading  with  the  Haytian  rebels 
against  Napoleon.  But  Marblehead  had  only  twelve  foreign  entries  dur- 
ing the  embargo  period,  paying  $35,000  duties,  as  compared  with  seventy 
for  the  year  1807,  paying  $156,000.  The  figures  given  in  Dwight's 
Travels  in  New  England  are  incorrect. 


EMBARGO  AND  WAR 

policy.  The  new  British  orders  required  some  adjust- 
ment of  trade  routes,  but  as  George  Cabot  said,  profits 
were  such  that  if  only  one  out  of  three  vessels  escaped 
capture,  her  owner  could  make  a  handsome  profit  on 
the  lot.  It  was  still  possible  to  ply  neutral  trade  under 
British  convoy,  inspection,  and  license;  a  system  de- 
grading perhaps  to  national  honor,  but  very  similar  to 
that  which  all  neutrals,  including  the  United  States, 
permitted  during  the  World  War.  Insurance  rates  were 
not  prohibitive ;  and  after  the  removal  of  the  embargo 
Massachusetts  shipping  arose  to  a  new  high  level  de- 
spite the  orders  in  council.  As  a  pure  business  propo- 
sition, then,  Jefferson's  plea  of  protection  made  little 
appeal. 

The  embargo  caused  greatest  hardship  in  the  smaller 
ports,  and  among  small  shipowners  and  working  peo- 
ple dependent  on  shipping.  Newburyport,  Salem,  and 
Plymouth  never  recovered  their  former  prosperity. 
Jefferson  hastened  the  inevitable  absorption  of  their 
commerce  by  Boston.  Shipbuilding,  with  all  its  sub- 
sidiary industries,  ceased  altogether.  Mechanics  and 
master  mariners  had  to  resort  to  the  soup  kitchens 
established  in  the  seaport  towns,  or  exhaust  their  sav- 
ings, or  emigrate  to  Canada  in  search  of  work.  The 
only  consolation  that  Dr.  Bentley,  the  stanch  Repub- 
lican pastor  of  Salem,  could  find  in  the  embargo,  was 
the  stimulus  it  gave  to  pleasure-boating  in  Salem  Bay! 
But  few  were  so  fortunately  circumstanced  as  to  seek 
solace  from  business  depression  in  yachting  life. 

In  1807,  the  Federalist  Party  was  in  extremis.  It  had 
lost  even  the  state  government  of  Massachusetts.  The 
embargo  rescued  it  from  the  shadow  of  death,  thrust 
into  its  palsied  hands  the  banner  of  state  rights,  and 
sent  it  forth  to  rally  the  seafaring  tribe.  Politicians 
like  Timothy  Pickering  hoped  the  embargo  would  re- 

191 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

main  in  force  until  the  "people  recovered  their  true 
sight"  —  and  President  Jefferson  proved  most  accom- 
modating. It  was  not  difficult  to  persuade  people  of 
the  hypocrisy  of  his  plea  of  protection,  and  to  prove 
that  his  real  wish  was  to  coerce  England.  With  such  an 
object  the  Federalists  had  no  sympathy.  Their  con- 
viction that  France  was  the  center  of  disturbance  and 
unrest  had  deepened,  although  Napoleon  did  his  best 
to  prove  the  contrary.  Yet  the  Federalists  were  right 
in  believing  that  the  restoration  of  peace  and  the  hope 
of  liberty  in  Europe  depended  on  the  overthrow  of 
Napoleon;  that  any  attempt  to  clip  the  British  Sam- 
son's hair  was  at  that  time  internationally  immoral, 
and  without  sharp  scissors,  imprudent. 

Not  content  with  these  arguments,  the  Federalists 
asserted,  with  some  plausibility,  that  Jefferson's  ulti- 
mate object  was  to  destroy  New  England's  wealth  and 
power.  How  else  could  one  explain,  for  instance,  his 
ban  on  East- India  and  China  commerce?  The  orders 
in  council  permitted  our  Oriental  trade;  Napoleonic 
decrees  were  powerless  in  far  eastern  waters.  Keeping 
Salem's  East-Indiamen  in  port  merely  helped  English 
shipowners.  So  abject  a  failure  was  the  embargo  as  a 
measure  of  coercion  that  Jefferson's  persistent  faith 
in  it  could  be  explained  only  by  enmity  to  American 
shipping,  or  by  pathological  causes. 

Fourteen  months  of  embargo  enabled  the  merchants 
to  recover  their  political  supremacy,  and  to  organize 
a  campaign  of  town-meeting  resolutions  that  had  the 
ring  of  1776.  Deserted  by  his  northern  partisans  in 
Congress,  Jefferson  finally  consented  to  sign  the  repeal 
of  the  embargo  on  his  last  day  in  office  —  March  3, 
1809.  Prosperity  promptly  returned.  But  the  em- 
bargo did  a  moral  damage  that  determined  New  Eng- 
land's alignment  In  the  coming  war.  It  enabled  the 

192 


EMBARGO  AND  WAR 

Essex  Junto,  the  most  bigoted  group  of  Federalist 
politicians,  to  endoctrine  maritime  New  England  with 
a  blind  hatred  for  the  Republican  Party;  to  regard  the 
administration  as  a  greater  enemy  than  any  foreign 
country.  It  bred  a  spirit  of  narrow  self-complacency, 
a  belief  in  the  superior  virtue,  enterprise,  and  worth 
of  Yankees  as  against  New  Yorkers,  Pennsylvanians, 
and  Southerners,  that  all  but  flared  up  into  secession 
before  the  cause  was  removed. 

After  the  embargo  was  lifted,  a  non-intercourse  act 
with  Great  Britain  remained  in  force  three  months; 
but  this  did  not  prevent  the  prompt  reopening  of 
Oriental,  West-Indian,  Baltic,  South  American,  and 
Mediterranean  commerce.  Fortunes  were  made  by 
supplying  the  British  army  in  the  Peninsular  War. 
Shipyards  awoke.  Fayal  in  the  Azores,  where  John  B. 
Dabney,  of  Boston,  was  American  consul  and  leading 
merchant,  became  a  new  St.  Eustatius,  a  go-between  for 
nations  forbidden  to  trade  with  one  another.  Russia 
became  almost  our  best  customer,  as  Napoleon  closed 
the  ports  of  western  Europe  to  our  vessels.  Almost  two 
hundred  United  States  vessels  were  now  trading  with 
Russia,  over  half  of  them,  probably,  belonging  in 
Massachusetts.1  Yankee  shipmasters  quickly  adapted 
themselves  to  the  new  conditions.  Wintering  at  Riga 
in  1810-11,  they  took  part  in  the  open-handed  social 
life  of  the  Bait  nobility;  skating  carnivals,  sleigh  rides 
at  breakneck  speed  over  the  flat  country,  montagnes 
russes,  brilliant  balls  and  Gargantuan  dinners.  To 
avoid  the  Danish  privateers  which  were  preying  on 
American  vessels,  many  made  the  long  voyage  around 
Norway  to  Archangel,  whence  their  imports  went  a 
thousand  miles  overland  to  Moscow.  But  the  ship- 

1  In  1803,  fifty-four  out  of  the  ninety  American  arrivals  in  St.  Peters- 
burg belonged  in  Massachusetts.  See  also  chapters  xi  and  xil. 

193 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

masters  found  Archangel  rather  exhausting,  as  the 
Russian  merchants,  after  hibernating,  expected  their 
American  customers  to  stay  up  and  drink  with  them 
through  the  bright  summer  nights.  The  Baltimore 
brig  Calumet  penetrated  the  Black  Sea  to  Odessa  in 
1810;  shortly  followed  by  a  vessel  commanded  by  a 
Ropes  of  Salem.  Profits  in  this  Russian  trade  were 
immense.  The  ship  Catherine  of  Boston,  281  tons, 
worth  possibly  $7000,  cleared  $115,000  net  in  one 
voyage  of  1809. 

President  Madison's  policy,  at  first  favorable  to 
commerce,  won  away  from  the  Federalists  a  part  of 
their  previous  gains.  In  1810  William  Gray  was 
elected  lieutenant-governor  of  Massachusetts.  His 
friend  John  Quincy  Adams,  who  likewise  had  been 
expelled  from  the  Federal  Party  for  supporting  the 
embargo,  was  appointed  minister  to  Russia,  went  out 
in  one  of  the  Gray  ships,  and  proved  a  useful  friend  at 
court.  William  Gray  was  the  principal  Russian  trader 
In  the  United  States.  He  distributed  Russian  duck, 
sheetings,  cordage,  and  iron  (which  sold  for  $115  a  ton 
in  Boston),  to  Philadelphia,  Charleston,  and  New  Or- 
leans, there  loading  tobacco,  sugar,  and  "cotton  wool" 
for  the  Baltic  market.  Other  vessels  of  his  fleet  took 
lumber  and  coffee  to  Algiers,  and  proceeded  to  Galli- 
polis  to  load  olive  oil  for  Russia.  In  addition,  he  was 
conducting  a  Mediterranean-Calcutta  trade. 

Napoleon  considered  the  American  Baltic  fleet  essen- 
tially British ;  and  according  to  the  British  doctrine  of 
neutral  rights  he  was  not  far  wrong.  Certain  vessels 
did  a  ferrying  trade  between  Copenhagen  and  London ; 
and  all  had  to  conform  to  British  regulations,  and 
accept  naval  convoy  through  the  Belts.  Even  William 
Gray,  who  was  continually  protesting  his  innocence 
of  British  connections,  used  London  bankers  almost 

194 


EMBARGO  AND  WAR 

exclusively,  and  on  one  occasion  chartered  a  British 
vessel.  Napoleon,  to  complete  his  continental  block- 
ade, required  the  occlusion  of  neutral  shipping  from 
Russia,  whose  emperor  was  his  nominal  ally;  and  from 
Sweden,  whose  ruler  was  his  former  marshal.  In  the 
summer  of  1810  he  made  the  demand.  Alexander  and 
Bernadotte  equivocated,  and  then  refused.  They  had 
no  intention  of  shutting  off  their  subjects'  supplies  of 
West-  and  East-India  goods.  Then  began  Napoleon's 
preparations  to  invade  Russia.  Thus  the  Baltic  trade 
of  Massachusetts  played  an  important  if  unconscious 
part  in  the  chain  of  events  that  led  Napoleon  to  Mos- 
cow and  to  St.  Helena. 


Within  a  week  of  the  Grand  Army's  entrance  into 
Russia,  the  United  States  declared  war  on  Great  Brit- 
ain. To  this  War  of  1812  maritime  Massachusetts 
was  flatly  opposed.  Her  pocket  and  her  heart  were 
equally  affected.  She  deemed  the  war  immoral,  be- 
cause waged  against  the  "world's  last  hope";  unjust, 
because  Napoleon  had  done  her  commerce  greater  in- 
jury than  had  England;  and  hypocritical,  because  de- 
clared in  the  name  of  "free  trade  and  sailors'  rights" 
by  a  sectional  combination  that  had  neither  com- 
merce nor  shipping.  In  Congress,  a  majority  of  the 
representatives  from  New  England  voted  against  the 
declaration  of  war,  which  was  carried  by  a  new  group 
of  representatives  from  the  South  and  West,  who  were 
burning  for  a  fight  and  anxious  to  conquer  Canada. 

Reviewing  the  diplomatic  ineptitude  of  Madison's 
administration,  the  opposition  of  Massachusetts  is  not 
surprising.  Napoleon's  pretended  revocation  of  his  de- 
crees had  been  exposed  by  Adams  at  St.  Petersburg 

195 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

as  "a  trap  to  catch  us  into  a  war  with  England." 
Every  shipmaster  knew  that  the  French  confiscations 
and  sequestrations  had  continued.  Secretary  Monroe 
admitted  as  much  in  1812,  after  war  had  been  declared. 
By  his  own  figures,  the  Napoleonic  system  had  done 
more  damage  to  American  commerce  than  had  British 
navalism.  Yet  the  administration,  on  the  ground  that 
the  "national  faith  was  pledged  to  France,"  1  adopted 
successively  non-intercourse,  embargo,  and  war  against 
Great  Britain.  When  the  administration  heard  that 
England  had  repealed  her  orders  in  council,  two  days 
after  our  declaration  of  war,  it  decided  to  continue  the 
war  on  the  ground  of  impressment  alone. 

It  was  difficult  to  discover  the  true  extent  of  im- 
pressment in  1812,  and  impossible  now.  Certain  it 
is,  however,  that  those  seaboard  communities  of  New 
England,  which  furnished  the  bulk  of  her  merchant 
seamen,  showed  repeatedly  by  vote  and  deed  their 
opposition  to  a  war  waged  ostensibly  in  their  behalf. 
Monroe's  report  of  1812,  giving  over  six  thousand 
cases  of  American  seamen  impressed  into  the  English 
navy,  was  shot  full  of  holes  by  a  committee  of  the  Gen- 
eral Court  of  Massachusetts.  Fifty-one  of  the  lead- 
ing shipowners  of  Massachusetts,  who  had  employed 
annually  over  fifteen  hundred  seamen  for  the  last 
twelve  years,  could  remember  but  twelve  cases  of 
Americans  being  impressed  from  their  vessels.  Nor 
were  all  these  witnesses  Federalists.  William  Gray 
gave  witness  against  his  party,  when  he  was  able  to 
recall  but  two  cases  of  impressment  from  his  great  fleet 
in  the  last  decade. 

The  truth  probably  lies  somewhere  between  these 

1  By  the  Macon  Act  of  1810,  which  proposed  that  whenever  either 
England  or  France  should  repeal  their  objectionable  measures  against 
the  United  States,  non-intercourse  should  be  adopted  against  the  other. 

196 


Ships  of  the  rJNE-l—Xo  Moving  MiU<i. 


FEDERALIST  BALLOT  FOR  THE  ELECTION  OF  1814 


EMBARGO  AND  WAR 

extremes.  A  large  number  of  impressed  Massachusetts 
seamen  spent  the  period  of  hostilities  in  Dartmoor 
Prison,  rather  than  fight  against  their  country.  Con- 
temporary newspapers,  sailors'  narratives  and  deposi- 
tions, contain  numerous  and  outrageous  cases;  none 
worse,  however,  than  an  instance  of  which  Adams  in- 
formed the  Secretary  of  State,  when  twenty-two  Amer- 
ican seamen  were  seized  by  Napoleon's  agents  at 
Danzig,  marched  to  Antwerp,  and  impressed  into  the 
French  navy.  Impressment  gave  sufficient  cause  for 
war,  by  modern  standards.  But  war  was  no  remedy,  as 
the  Peace  of  Ghent  proved.  A  powerful  navy  was  the 
only  language  England  understood. 

"Sir,  if  we  are  going  to  war  with  Great  Britain," 
said  Senator  Lloyd,  of  Massachusetts,  "let  it  be  a  real, 
effectual,  vigorous  war.  Give  us  a  naval  force  . . .  give 
us  thirty  swift-sailing,  well  appointed  frigates  . .  .  and 
in  a  few  weeks,  perhaps  days,  I  would  engage  com- 
pletely to  officer  your  whole  fleet  from  New  England 
alone."  Yet  the  war  congress  adjourned  without  pro- 
viding any  increase  of  the  weakened  navy;  without 
even  proper  appropriation  for  the  vessels  in  commis- 
sion. The  navy  department  could  not  even  afford  to 
send  the  frigate  Constitution  to  sea,  after  her  escape 
from  the  British  fleet;  and  had  not  William  Gray  dug 
into  his  own  pocket  for  her  supplies,  she  would  not  have 
met  and  defeated  the  Guenilre.  Yet  on  the  eve  of  war, 
Madison  and  Monroe  squandered  fifty  thousand  dollars 
of  the  nation's  money  on  a  worthless  Irish  adventurer, 
in  the  hope  he  would  furnish  proof  of  New  England  Fed- 
eralist disloyalty.  Is  it  surprising  that  the  Federalist 
leaders  cried  out  at  this  war  for  "free  trade  and  sailors' 
rights,"  declared  by  "men  who  rarely  ever  saw  a  ship 
or  sailor";  and  that  maritime  Massachusetts  followed 
Chief  Justice  Marshall  rather  than  President  Madison? 

197 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

"The  declaration  of  war  has  appeared  to  me,"  wrote 
John  Marshall,  "to  be  one  of  those  portentous  acts 
which  ought  to  concentrate  on  itself  the  efforts  of  all 
those  who  can  take  an  active  part  in  rescuing  their 
country  from  the  ruin  it  threatens."  Massachusetts 
agreed.  "Organize  a  peace  party  throughout  your 
Country,"  resolved  her  House  of  Representatives, 
after  the  declaration;  and  "  let  the  sound  of  your  dis- 
approbation of  this  war  be  loud  and  deep,  ...  let  there 
be  no  volunteers  except  for  defensive  war. ' '  The  Barn- 
stable  County  peace  convention,  uniting  many  ship- 
masters sent  by  Cape  Cod  town  meetings,  declared 
the  war  to  have  "originated  in  hatred  to  New  England 
and  to  commerce;  in  subservience  to  the  mandate  of 
the  Tyrant  of  France"  To  sabotage  the  war,  in  the 
interest  of  an  early  peace,  became  the  declared  policy 
of  maritime  Massachusetts. 

The  community  could  not  wholly  refrain  from  en- 
thusiasm at  naval  victories,  especially  when  Boston's 
favorite  frigate,  the  Constitution,  was  the  victor.  Hull 
and  Bainbridge  were  banqueted  by  Boston  merchants, 
and  Perry  presented  with  a  service  of  plate.  The  Fed- 
eralists even  attempted  to  capitalize  naval  success,  as 
the  appended  Boston  ballot  for  the  spring  election  of 
1814  indicates.1  But  the  State  Senate,  on  motion  of 
Josiah  Quincy,  refused  a  vote  of  thanks  to  Captain 
Lawrence  for  his  capture  of  the  Peacock,  on  the  ground 
that  "in  a  war  like  the  present"  it  was  "not  becoming 
a  moral  and  religious  people  to  express  any  approba- 
tion of  military  and  naval  exploits."  When  Law- 
rence's body,  after  his  glorious  death  aboard  the  Chesa- 
peake, was  brought  back  to  Salem  for  burial,  the  North 

1  Ballots  in  these  days  were  prepared  by  each  party,  and  distributed 
at  the  polls.  By  law,  they  had  to  be  written,  not  printed.  A  'shaving- 
mill  '  meant  a  Jeff ersonian  gunboat. 

198 


EMBARGO  AND  WAR 

Meeting-House  was  refused  for  the  funeral  ceremony, 
and  its  bell  hung  silent  when  the  procession  passed. 
The  East-India  Marine  Society  only  by  a  vote  of  32  to 
19  decided  to  attend.  A  local  militia  company  refused 
to  do  escort  duty,  and  not  a  single  representative  of  the 
state  government  attended  in  his  official  capacity. 

Political  sentiment  being  such,  it  is  not  surprising 
that  Massachusetts  did  not  show  her  former  preemi- 
nence in  privateering.  As  against  fifty-eight  privateers 
from  Baltimore  and  fifty-five  from  New  York,  Boston 
only  fitted  out  thirty-one,  Salem  forty-one,1  and  the 
smaller  ports,  probably  not  more  than  fifteen  alto- 
gether. "  Federalist  ideas  were  so  prominent "  in  New- 
buryport  "that  the  fitting  of  privateers  was  opposed 
strongly,"  stated  a  contemporary.  New  Bedford,  not 
only  Federalist  but  Quaker,  declared  in  town  meet- 
ing on  July  21, 1814,  "we  have  scrupulously  abstained 
from  all  interest  and  concern  in  sending  out  private 
armed  vessels";  and  resolved  to  quarantine  for  forty 
days  any  American  privateer  that  polluted  her  har- 
bor. The  efforts  of  Salem's  Republican  minority,  de- 
spite Federalists  like  Captain  Ichabod  Nichols,  who 
read  Marshall's  "Life  of  Washington"  through  annu- 
ally, explain  her  activity.  Privateering  was  much  the 
most  popular  form  of  service  in  maritime  Massachu- 
setts; it  paid  better  wages,  was  safer,  and  more  fun 
than  the  army  or  navy.  Marblehead,  which  supported 
the  war,  provided  726  privateersmen,  120  naval  sea- 
men, and  only  57  soldiers,  not  including  the  local 
militia. 

1  Rear-Admiral  Emmons  in  1853  estimated  that  526  privateers  were 
fitted  out  from  the  United  States  during  the  war;  but  this  doubtless 
includes  letter-of-marque  vessels  which  were  primarily  traders,  not 
commerce  destroyers.  Five  of  Salem's  privateers  were  small  open  boats 
armed  only  with  muskets,  and  only  twelve  were  over  one  hundred  tons 
burthen. 

199 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

The  first  privateer  to  fit  out  from  Salem  was  the 
new  Gloucester-built  Chebacco  boat  Fame,  thirty  tons, 
owned  jointly  by  her  master  William  Webb,  and  crew 
of  twenty-four  ex-shipmasters.1  She  put  to  sea  on  July 
i,  1812,  and  returned  eight  days  later  with  two  prizes, 
a  three-hundred-ton  ship  and  a  two-hundred-ton  brig, 
taken  off  Grand  Manan  without  firing  a  shot.  George 
Crowninshield,  Jr.,  decked  over  his  thirty-six-foot 
yacht  Jefferson,  armed  her  with  a  gun  or  two,  and  sent 
her  out  with  thirty  men.  "When  I  saw  you  landing, 
I  could  think  of  nothing  else  than  so  many  goslins  in 
a  bread  tray,"  said  a  Maine  woman  to  the  Jefferson's 
crew;  but  they  sent  in  the  second  lot  of  prizes  to 
Salem.  There  were  rich  pickings  to  be  had  on  the 
Western  Ocean  that  summer,  before  John  Bull  was 
fairly  aroused.  By  the  end  of  the  year  eighteen  Salem 
privateers  had  captured  eighty-seven  prizes,  of  which 
fifty-eight,  worth  with  their  cargoes  half  a  million  dol- 
lars, were  safely  sent  in.  The  local  Federalist  paper 
remarked  that  Salem  property  to  the  value  of  nine 
hundred  thousand  dollars  had  in  the  meantime  been 
taken  by  the  enemy.  Perhaps  the  name  of  a  new  Salem 
privateer,  the  Grumbler  and  Growler,  was  a  compliment 
to  this  unpatriotic  sheet! 

Most  Salem  privateering  was  done  near  the  Ameri- 
can coasts.  But  French  ports  offered  a  convenient 
base  and  refuge,  as  in  the  Revolution ;  especially  in  the 
latter  year  of  the  war,  when  the  United  States  was 
blockaded.  The  schooner  Brutus  slipped  out  of  Salem 
early  in  November,  1814.  According  to  the  log  kept 
by  her  Nantucket  sailing-master,  Henry  Ingraham  De- 
frees,  she  took  six  prizes  in  six  weeks'  time;  and  near 
the  coast  of  France,  after  a  long  stern  chase,  came  up 

1  Maclay  (American  Privateers,  239)  is  in  error  in  identifying  this 
vessel  with  a  Revolutionary  privateer  of  the  same  name. 

2OO 


EMBARGO  AND  WAR 

with  the  armed  British  ship  Albion.  At  3  P.M.  "Bore 
down  on  the  enemys  Larboard  quarter  within  pistol 
shot  &  gave  him  2  broadsides,  wore  across  his  sterne  & 
from  thence  under  his  Starboard  quarter,  gave  her 
several  broadsides,  &  musketry.  At  3:30  she  struck." 
Three  days  later,  the  captor  put  in  at  Quimper, 
Britanny,  where  one  of  her  crew  "was  put  in  Irons  for 
strikeing  the  1st  Seargent  of  Marines,  he  then  insulted 
all  the  officers  &  to  Prevent  further  insolence  he  was 
gagged  for  two  hours  with  a  pump  bolt." 

The  most  artistic  ship  picture  in  the  Peabody  Mu- 
seum is  Antoine  Roux's  portrait  of  the  privateer  brig 
Grand  Turk  x  saluting  Marseilles  on  her  last  cruise  of 
the  war.  Her  records  give  all  the  business  details  of 
commerce-destroying.  The  owners  pay  all  expenses, 
and  receive  half  the  net  proceeds  of  prizes.  The  re- 
mainder is  divided  into  about  one  hundred  and  fifty 
shares,  of  which  Captain  Nathan  Green  gets  ten,  the 
first  lieutenant,  seven  and  a  half;  second  lieutenant, 
sailing  master,  and  surgeon,  each  six;  secretary,  pay- 
master, and  pilot,  each  three;  gunners  and  petty  offi- 
cers, each  two  or  two  and  a  half;  and  ninety-five  sea- 
men, each  one.  In  addition,  there  is  twenty  dollars  for 
whomever  first  sights  a  prize,  and  half  a  share  extra 
for  the  first  to  board  one.  No  seaman  may  sell  more 
than  half  his  share  in  advance. 

Chesapeake-built  clipper  schooners,  with  their  sharp 
ends,  shoal  draft,  and  cloud  of  canvas,  were  the  most 
popular  privateers  in  the  War  of  1812.  Salem  owned 
several  of  them;  but  a  greater  proportion  were  cap- 
tured than  of  the  home-built  sort.  During  the  war, 

1  Built  at  Wiscasset,  Maine,  18  guns,  309  tons  burthen.  Maclay  is 
again  in  error  in  identifying  this  vessel  with  the  Grand  Turk  which 
made  an  early  voyage  to  Canton.  She  was  owned  in  Boston,  but 
manned  largely  by  Salem  men. 

2OI 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

Massachusetts  builders  probably  began  that  process 
of  drawing  out  the  length  of  vessels  and  sweetening 
their  lines,  which  in  another  fifteen  years'  time  pro- 
duced a  much  faster  and  handier  type  of  merchant- 
man than  the  Federalist  period  ever  knew.1 

Although  the  brig  Grand  Turk,  according  to  Dr. 
Bentley,  was  considered  the  best  sailer  out  of  Salem, 
the  Crowninshields'  ship  America  was  the  most  suc- 
cessful, as  indeed  she  had  been  as  a  merchantman.  Her 
new  rig  was  enormous  in  comparison  with  her  hull. 
Her  main  truck  was  136  feet  from  the  deck;  her  bow- 
sprit, lengthened  by  jibboom  and  flying  jibboom,  107 
feet  long;  she  had  a  67-foot  mainyard,  and  the  total 
spread  of  her  sail,  from  studdingsail  boom-end  to 
boom-end,  was  104  feet.2  Yet  her  length  was  only 
108  feet,  7  inches,  and  breadth  30  feet,  8  inches.  With 
her  twenty-four  guns  and  one  hundred  and  fifty  men 
she  netted  twenty-six  prizes,  which  sold  for  over  a 
million  dollars.  One  of  them  was  a  Liverpool  ship,  by 
which  the  Irving  family  of  New  York  was  trying  to 
smuggle  English  goods  after  hostilities  had  com- 
menced. This  explains  why  Tom  Walker,  in  Wash- 
ington Irving's  story,  on  observing  the  name  of 
Crowninshield,  "recollected  a  mighty  rich  man  of  that 
name,  who  made  a  vulgar  display  of  wealth,  which  it 
was  whispered  he  had  acquired  by  buccaneering." 

1  J.  &  T.  H.  Perkins  to  Perkins  &  Co.,  Canton,  November  17,  1814, 
about  their  ship  Jacob  Jones,  "Some  insurance  has  been  done  on  her, 
owing  to  her  being  a  war  built  vessel,  and  having  the  reputation  of  a 
swift  sailor,  at  fifty  per  cent . . .  Vessels  built  before  the  war  cannot  be 
insured  at  seventy-five  per  cent." 

2  The  picture  of  her  in  chapter  vn  shows  her  merchantman  rig.  There 
is  a  full-rigged  model  of  her  as  a  privateer  in  the  Peabody  Museum,  and 
a  reconstructed  sail-plan  in  the  Essex  Historical  Collections,  xxxvii,  7. 
During  her  three  last  cruises  she  was  commanded  by  James  Chever,  Jr., 
of  Salem,  who  had  started  as  her  cabin  boy  in  1804,  and  had  had  a 
brother  impressed  into  the  British  navy. 

2O2 


EMBARGO  AND  WAR 

"Mr.  Madison's  war"  interrupted  the  Pacific  com- 
merce of  Massachusetts,  to  the  profit  of  Great  Britain. 
English  letter-of-marque  whalers,  some  manned  by 
renegade  Nantucketers,  played  havoc  with  our  Pacific 
whaling  fleet  until  Captain  David  Porter  turned  the 
tables  with  the  frigate  Essex.  The  salty  narrative  of 
her  cruise,  by  this  young  Boston  commander,  is  the 
best  bit  of  sea  literature  of  the  period.  Captain  Porter 
gave  his  scorbutic  seamen  six  months  of  heaven  in 
Nukahiva  Island,  of  which  he  formally  took  possession 
in  the  name  of  the  United  States,  and  rechristened  the 
principal  harbor  Massachusetts  Bay.  Although  Cap- 
tain Ingraham  of  the  Hope  had  discovered  the  island, 
the  United  States  did  not  see  fit  to  confirm  Captain 
Porter's  occupation ;  and  the  Marquesas  fell  to  France. 

The  Essex  never  cruised  far  enough  to  protect  our 
China  and  East-India  traders.  A  number  of  them 
reached  home  safely  during  the  first  year  of  the  war, 
giving  small  harbors  their  first  and  last  contact  with 
the  Far  East.  Late  in  1812  the  ship  American  Hero 
from  India  put  in  at  Barnstable.  Early  in  April,  1813, 
the  ship  Sally  from  Canton  learned  from  a  fishing  boat 
off  Cape  Cod  that  war  had  been  declared  the  previous 
June.  She  also  learned  that  two  British  frigates  were 
waiting  for  her  outside  Boston  Light.  A  favorable 
slant  enabled  her  to  slip  into  Plymouth  Bay,  and  to 
give  the  Pilgrim  capital  its  greatest  sensation  since  the 
Mayflower  landed.  For  not  only  did  the  Sally's  rich 
cargo  pay  $133,73147  in  duties  —  more  than  that 
customs  district  had  taken  in  since  Jefferson's  em- 
bargo —  but  she  landed  a  Chinese  passenger,  who  in 
full  mandarin  costume  attended  '  meeting '  the  follow- 
ing Sabbath.  The  collector  of  the  port  of  Boston  did 
his  best  to  deprive  Plymouth  of  the  duties;  but  posses- 
sion proved  nine  points  of  the  law,  and  the  Sally's 

203 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

Canton  goods  were  forwarded  to  her  Boston  owners  in 
a  fleet  of  wagons. 

At  Honolulu,  early  in  1812,  the  Winships  of  Bos- 
ton had  obtained  a  sandalwood  monopoly  from  King 
Kamehameha  I,  in  return  for  a  percentage  of  the 
profits.  Arrival  of  the  first  fragrant  cargo  at  Canton 
was  closely  followed  by  news  of  the  war,  so  that  the 
Winships'  agents,  for  fear  of  capture  by  English  cruis- 
ers, had  to  ship  the  king's  share  of  silk  and  specie  in  a 
slow  Portuguese  vessel.  By  the  time  she  arrived  at 
Honolulu,  some  British  residents  had  so  prejudiced 
Hawaiian  royalty  against  Americans  that  the  king 
showed  signs  of  breaking  the  contract.  To  prevent 
this,  Jonathan  Winship,  Jr.  instructed  the  Portuguese 
captain  to  hold  the  specie  until  a  new  lot  of  sandal- 
wood  forthcame;  unless  indeed  a  British  cruiser  ap- 
proached. In  that  event,  the  silver  should  be  landed 
on  the  royal  wharf,  to  avoid  the  possibility  of  seizure. 
A  Hawaiian  princess,  overhearing  the  conversation, 
played  a  neat  Yankee  trick  on  the  Yankee  traders.  At 
the  lookout  on  Diamond  Head,  where  the  government 
maintained  a  signal  station,  her  royal  highness  cor- 
rupted the  human  semaphore,  who  signaled  to  the  inner 
harbor,  "  Big  British  warship  coming! "  The  Portuguese 
captain  hurriedly  landed  his  cargo;  and  before  the  ship- 
ping intelligence  proved  false,  Kamehameha  had  the 
specie,  and  snapped  his  fat  fingers  at  Messrs.  Winship, 
Winship  &  Davis.  Not  until  another  reign  did  Amer- 
icans recover  their  influence  at  the  Islands. 

In  order  to  send  instructions  to  their  blockaded 
vessels  at  Whampoa,  the  Boston  China  merchants 
dispatched  three  letters-of-marque,  the  brig  Rambler, 
sixteen  guns  and  fifty  men,  ship  Jacob  Jones,  and 
schooner  Tamaamaah.  *  All  three  reached  Canton 

1  The  common  spelling  at  that  time  of  Kamehameha. 
204 


safely,  and  took  a  few  prizes  off  Lintin.  Ordering  the 
merchant  vessels  to  remain  until  peace  was  announced, 
the  three  letters-of-marque,  loaded  deep  with  China 
goods,  dropped  down-river  from  Whampoa  on  the 
night  of  January  18,  1815,  passing  in  the  darkness  two 
British  men-of-war,  and  about  twenty  armed  East- 
Indiamen,  which  fired  guns  and  burned  blue  lights  to 
no  purpose.  Keeping  company  through  the  homeward 
passage,  they  arrived  at  Boston  on  May  3  and  4,  1815, 
1 08  and  109  days  out  from  Whampoa,  in  time  to  get 
the  high  prices  that  prevailed  just  after  the  war. 

During  the  first  six  months  of  the  war,  every  Atlan- 
tic port  of  the  United  States  traded  with  England, 
under  license  from  the  British  blockading  squadron. 
The  ship  Ariadne  of  Boston,  owned  by  Amorys,  Per- 
kinses, Parsons,  and  Nathaniel  Goddard,  was  a  case  in 
point.  Obtaining  informal  permission  from  the  Attor- 
ney-General and  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  she 
took  a  cargo  of  provisions  to  Cadiz,  under  British 
license.  It  was  currently  believed  in  Massachusetts 
that  tobacco  from  President  Madison's  own  plantation 
went  to  England  by  this  system,  which  Congress  made 
no  effort  to  restrain  until  the  crops  of  1812  had  found 
profitable  market.  Much  contraband  trade  went  on 
over  the  New  Brunswick  and  Florida  frontiers,  and 
part  of  the  Massachusetts  fleet  took  out  Portuguese 
papers.  Boston  merchants  made  large  profits  from  the 
enhanced  price  of  foreign  goods.  John  McLane  cleared 
$100,000  by  a  corner  in  molasses  soon  after  the  decla- 
ration of  war.  Later,  he  established  the  McLane  pro- 
fessorship of  modern  history  at  Harvard. 

By  1813  conditions  had  changed.  Only  five  Ameri- 
can and  thirty-nine  neutral  vessels  cleared  that  year 
from  Boston  for  foreign  ports.  On  September  8  there 
lay  idle  in  Boston  Harbor,  with  topmasts  housed  and 

205 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

mastheads  covered  by  inverted  tar-barrels  or  canvas 
bags  ("Madison's  night-caps")  to  prevent  rotting; 
ninety-one  ships,  one  hundred  and  eleven  barques  and 
brigs,  and  forty-five  schooners.  And  in  December, 
1813,  Congress  passed  a  new  embargo  act,  which  for- 
bade all  coastwise  as  well  as  foreign  traffic,  and  was 
rigorously  enforced.  It  is  said  that  a  man  from  the 
Elizabeth  Islands,  who  brought  corn  to  the  New  Bed- 
ford grist-mill,  was  refused  clearance  home  for  his 
bag  of  meal.  Such  a  clamor  arose  against  "Madison's 
embargo"  that  Congress  repealed  it  in  the  spring  of 
1814;  but  no  sooner  was  this  done  than  the  British 
blockade  was  extended  from  Long  Island  Sound  to  the 
Penobscot. 

So  completely  did  embargo  and  blockade  stop 
coasting  that  a  wagon  traffic  began  between  maritime 
Massachusetts  and  the  South.  Federalist  wits  ex- 
pended their  energy  on  this  new  form  of  commerce. 
Pungs  and  wagons  were  christened  the  Jefferson's 
Pride  of  Salem,  and  Mud-clipper  of  Boston.  News- 
papers reported,  under  "Horse-marine  Intelligence," 
the  entrance  of  fast-sailing  wagons  from  New  York 
and  Albany,  with  news  of  vessels  spoken  en  route,  to- 
gether with  sundry  searchings  by  customs  officials  and 
boardings  by  tithing-men,  who  vainly  invoked  blue 
laws  against  the  deep-sea  slogan  of  "No  Sundays  off 
soundings."  Chanties  were  composed  for  the  land 
navy: 

Ye  waggoners  of  Freedom, 
Whose  chargers  chew  the  cud; 

Whose  wheels  have  braved  a  dozen  years 
The  gravel  and  the  mud. 

Much  commerce  was  also  done  in  whaleboats  which 
sneaked  along  the  South  Shore  to  Sandwich,  and  were 
then  transferred  overland  with  their  cargoes  to  Buz- 

206 


EMBARGO  AND  WAR 

zard's  Bay,  along  the  present  route  of  the  Cape  Cod 
Canal.  An  adept  at  this  trade  was  Captain  John  Col- 
lins, of  Truro,  who  later  became  a  famous  packet-ship 
commander,  and  an  organizer  of  the  Collins  line  of 
ocean  steamers. 

The  British  fleet  made  life  very  stimulating  along 
the  Massachusetts  coast,  during  the  summer  and  au- 
tumn of  1814.  Two  frigates  made  their  headquarters 
at  Provincetown,  which  the  government  had  neglected 
to  fortify,  and  cruised  constantly  between  Cape  Cod 
and  Cape  Ann.  In  August  another  British  base  was 
established  at  Castine  on  the  Penobscot.  South  of  the 
Cape,  H.M.S.  Nimrod  ruled  the  waters  of  Nantucket 
and  Vineyard  Sounds,  and  Buzzard's  Bay.  These 
vessels  captured,  and  often  ransomed,  such  coasting 
and  fishing  vessels  as  ventured  out;  their  armed  barges 
made  frequent  forays  and  landings  on  the  coast,  to 
destroy  shipping  and  obtain  fresh  provisions.  For  de- 
fense, the  Navy  Department  provided  four  JefFersonian 
gunboats,  two  at  Newburyport  and  two  at  New  Bed- 
ford, which  were  perfectly  useless.  The  southern  pair 
spent  most  of  its  time  safely  hidden  in  the  Acushnet 
River,  and  even  dared  not  attack  the  Nimrod  when  she 
stranded  on  Great  Ledge  near  New  Bedford.  When 
the  frigates  raided  Wareham,  destroying  buildings  and 
shipping  to  the  value  of  many  thousand  dollars,  the 
gunboats  bravely  issued  forth  when  it  was  all  over  — 
and  Wareham  stopped  counting  her  losses  to  laugh. 
Otherwise,  Massachusetts  depended  for  defense  on  her 
regular  militia,  stationed  in  small  forts  at  most  of  the 
larger  seaports;  and  on  volunteer  companies  of  'sea- 
fencibles.' 

No  part  of  the  long  coastline  was  unvisited  by  the 
British  frigates  or  barges.  They  landed  a  crew  at 
Thatcher's  Island  off  Cape  Ann,  and  dug  potatoes;  cut 

207 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

fishing  boats  out  of  Kettle  Cove;  drove  a  schooner 
ashore  on  Mingo  Beach,  Beverly;  took  vessels  from 
under  the  guns  of  Fort  Sewall,  Marblehead,  and  cap- 
tured six  coasters  close  by  the  Neck.  In  general,  Brit- 
ish landing  parties  had  their  will  of  Federalist  towns, 
and  were  driven  off  by  Democratic  towns.  "  Province- 
town  received  no  small  benefit  from  the  English  ves- 
sels, and  some  of  the  fortunes  since  acquired,  had  their 
beginning  from  this  source,"  says  the  historian  of 
Truro.  Duxbury  and  Plymouth  informed  the  com- 
mander of  H.M.S.  Leander  that  they  considered  the 
war  none  of  .their  business;  the  Old  Colony  had  not 
been  consulted.  But  for  the  Gurnet  garrison's  per- 
verse belligerency,  Pilgrim  neutrality  might  have  been 
respected.  Nantucket  declared  her  neutrality  in  Au- 
gust, in  order  to  procure  food  through  the  blockade. 
So  near  starving  was  the  island,  that  a  local  wag  asked 
his  rich  neighbor  for  a  hammer  to  knock  his  teeth  out 
—  "he  had  no  need  of  them,  because  he  could  n't  get 
anything  to  eat!" 

Captain  Mathew  H.  Mayo,  of  Eastham,  impressed 
as  pilot  on  board  a  captured  pinkie,  managed  by  a 
series  of  clever  stratagems  to  run  her  ashore  within 
a  mile  of  his  own  house.  For  this  exploit  the  town  of 
Eastham  paid  twelve  hundred  dollars  to  the  British 
authorities,  under  threat  of  bombardment.  Brewster 
was  an  easier  mark.  In  September,  1814,  Commodore 
Ragget,  of  H.M.S.  Spencer,  demanded  four  thousand 
dollars,  to  spare  the  village  and  the  salt-works.  Brew- 
ster had  a  company  of  artillery,  with  two  field  pieces ; 
but  the  town  meeting  (whose  moderator  was  Captain 
Elijah  Cobb,  that  young  shipmaster  who  had  bearded 
Robespierre)  calmly  paid  the  money.  Such  non-re- 
sistance was  quite  unnecessary,  for  the  British  war- 
ships could  not  get  within  range  of  the  bay-side  Cape 

208 


EMBARGO  AND  WAR 

cottages,  and  a  good  demonstration  of  militia  usually 
frightened  away  landing  parties.  Democratic  Orleans 
"promptly  and  indignantly  rejected"  a  demand  for 
ransom,  and  was  not  molested.  Two  girls,  left  in 
charge  of  the  Scituate  Lighthouse,  frightened  off  a 
British  barge  by  retiring  behind  a  hillock  and  playing 
furiously  on  fife  and  drum. 

Falmouth  1  best  upheld  the  honor  of  the  Cape.  In 
January,  1814,  the  commander  of  H.M.S.  Nimrod 
demanded  that  Falmouth  surrender  the  Nantucket 
packet-sloop,  and  several  pieces  of  artillery  which  had 
been  used  to  good  effect.  Weston  Jenkins,  shipmaster 
and  militia  captain,  replied,  "Come  on  and  get  them!" 
The  Nimrod  then  stood  close  in  shore,  and  after  grant- 
ing two  hours'  truce  to  remove  non-combatants,  bom- 
barded the  houses  from  noon  to  nightfall.  Eight  can- 
non balls  were  lodged  in  one  cottage  alone ;  but  beyond 
smashing  furniture  and  breaking  salt-vats,  little  dam- 
age was  done,  and  no  lives  lost.  The  entrenched  mili- 
tia prevented  a  landing.  Later  in  the  year  Captain  Jen- 
kins, with  a  crew  of  neighbors  in  a  small  sloop,  cut  the 
British  privateer  Retaliation  out  of  Tarpaulin  Cove. 

Disaffection  reached  a  dangerous  point  in  all  south- 
ern New  England  during  the  summer  and  autumn  of 
1814.  In  addition  to  its  original  grievance  against  the 
war,  maritime  Massachusetts  felt  abandoned  by  the 
federal  government.  Her  volunteers  were  marched  off 
to  the  Canadian  frontier,  and  her  coast  left  defenseless ; 
while  war  taxes  increased,  and  the  administration 
showed  no  sign  of  yielding  its  high  pretensions,  which 
postponed  the  conclusion  of  peace.  Interior  Massa- 
chusetts was  in  general  of  like  mind ;  and  Connecticut 
and  Rhode  Island  as  well.  Secession  from  the  Union 
was  openly  propagated  by  the  Federalist  press;  and 
1  The  village  now  known  as  Wood's  Hole. 
2C9 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

there  are  various  indications  that  secession  sentiment 
had  gone  far  among  the  people.  According  to  the  rec- 
ords of  the  Beverly  artillery  company,  it  "exercised 
the  Gun  as  usual  and  fired  a  Royal  Salute  of  5  guns," 
on  July  4,  1814.  The  Newburyport  Sea  Fencibles, 
composed  principally  of  shipmasters  and  builders, 
flung  a  five-starred,  five-striped  flag  to  the  breeze 
from  Plum  Island  fort. 

At  the  darkest  hour  of  the  war,  when  one  British 
army  was  massed  on  the  Lake  Champlain  front,  an- 
other on  its  way  to  New  Orleans,  and  the  government 
of  the  United  States  a  refugee  from  the  destroyed  capi- 
tal, the  General  Court  of  Massachusetts  summoned 
a  New  England  convention  at  Hartford,  to  confer 
not  only  upon  military  defense  against  the  enemy, 
but  on  political  defense  against  the  administration. 
Although  the  moderate  Federalists  conceived  the 
Hartford  Convention  largely  as  a  safety-valve  to  the 
passions  they  had  helped  arouse,  the  Essex  Junto 
had  other  plans.  Timothy  Pickering,  just  reflected  to 
Congress  by  an  all  but  unanimous  vote,  wished  the 
Convention  to  draft  a  new  constitution,  and  present  it 
as  a  loaded  pistol  at  the  original  thirteen  states,  with 
the  alternative  of  an  independent  New  England  Con- 
federacy. John  Lowell  paved  the  way,  with  articles 
and  pamphlets  defending  the  right  of  secession. 

The  unpatriotism  of  this  programme  needs  no  com- 
ment. However  justified  the  Federalist  opposition  to 
the  war  in  1812,  the  war  in  1814  had  become  a  defen- 
sive struggle  against  the  massed  resources  of  the  Brit- 
ish Empire.  Napoleon  had  been  disposed  of.  The  un- 
wisdom of  secession,  for  communities  that  depended  for 
their  very  life  on  free  intercourse  with  the  other  United 
States,  is  equally  obvious.  Politicians  were  perhaps 
more  directly  responsible  for  it  than  shipmasters;  but 

210 


EMBARGO  AND  WAR 

the  maritime  interests  of  Massachusetts  supported 
the  politicians.  And  among  the  members  of  the  Gen- 
eral Court  who  voted  for  a  convention  at  Hartford 
were  merchants  like  T.  H.  Perkins,  Israel  Thorndike, 
Daniel  Sargent,  and  Captain  William  Sturgis. 

It  seems  strange  that  a  people  whose  sails  whitened 
every  sea;  whose  two  commercial  cities,  in  many  and 
remote  parts  of  the  world,  stood  for  the  United  States; 
who  talked  familiarly  of  the  Far  West  and  Hawaii  as 
The  Coast  and  The  Islands;  should  be  so  narrow  and 
inflexible  in  their  politics.  Yet  this  attitude  was 
natural  and  inevitable.  Ccdum  non  animum  mutant 
qui  trans  mare  currunt.  They  that  do  business  in  great 
waters  have  little  in  common  with  their  land-plodding 
countrymen.  Their  native  land  is  but  a  resting  place 
between  voyages;  a  wharf  and  shipyard  and  cottage  by 
the  sea.  New  England  was  but  a  broader  Nantucket, 
where  aged  shipmasters  could  be  found  who  knew  half 
the  coral  reefs  of  the  South  Sea,  but  had  never  set  foot 
in  the  United  States.  A  sailor's  daughter  worked  the 
creed  of  maritime  Massachusetts  into  her  sampler: 

Amy  Kittredge  is  my  name 
Salem  is  my  dwelling  place 
New  England  is  my  nashun 
And  Christ  is  my  Salvation. 

The  Union  ceased  to  be  valuable  when  fresh-water 
politicians  took  bread  from  the  mouths  of  honest  sea- 
men. Better  go  it  alone,  a  North  American  Denmark, 
than  stifle  under  the  rule  of  scatter-brained  dema- 
gogues. 

New  England  held  her  breath  while  the  Hartford 
Convention  secretly  deliberated.  Its  report,  appearing 
on  January  6,  1815,  showed  that  common  sense  and 
moderation  had  gained  control.  The  administration 
was  severely  scolded,  and  nullification  threatened  if 

211 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

conscription  were  applied.    But  secession  was  calmly 
considered,  and  ruled  out  of  practical  politics. 

Five  weeks  later,  in  the  midst  of  a  cold  February 
that  sealed  the  war-bound  shipping  in  the  idle  ports, 
arrived  the  news  of  peace.  From  Newburyport  to 
Provincetown  sped  the  good  news;  shouted  along  the 
roads  by  stage-drivers  through  clouds  of  frozen  breath, 
blared  out  by  rusty  fishhorns,  and  joyously  tolled  by 
meeting-house  bells  whose  sullen  silence  no  battle  had 
broken.  For  maritime  Massachusetts,  peace  meant  the 
unlocking  of  prison  doors ;  a  return  to  the  wide  arms  of 
her  ocean  mother. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  PASSING  OF  SALEM 
1815-1845 

THE  first  few  years  of  world  peace  were  the  severest 
test  that  maritime  Massachusetts  had  ever  met.  New 
conditions,  foreign  and  domestic,  required  a  readjust- 
ment of  her  economic  system.  Europe  at  peace  was  re- 
covering her  own  carrying  trade.  Only  gradually  did 
England  open  her  colonial  ports  to  Yankee  ships,  and  a 
generation  elapsed  before  new  markets  were  found  in 
California,  Australia,  and  South  Africa.  At  the  same 
time  the  westward  movement  in  the  United  States  left 
Massachusetts  more  remote  from  the  center  of  popula- 
tion ;  and  it  was  difficult  to  find  artificial  means  to  sur- 
mount the  Berkshire  barrier.  As  places  of  exchange  be- 
tween the  West  and  Europe,  ports  like  New  Orleans, 
Baltimore,  and  New  York  with  the  Erie  Canal,  had 
such  obvious  advantages  over  Boston  and  Salem  that 
it  was  difficult  to  see  how  Massachusetts  could  survive 
as  a  commercial  community.  The  futile,  unpatriotic 
policy  of  New  England  Federalism  made  Massachu- 
setts the  butt  and  scorn  of  her  sister  states,  and  lost 
her,  for  the  time  being,  all  influence  at  Washington.  A 
sullen  pessimism  was  the  prevailing  attitude  on  State 
Street.  The  decline  of  Boston  to  a  fourth-rate  seaport, 
and  the  total  extinction  of  Salem,  were  confidently 
predicted. 

The  younger  and  more  far-sighted  men  put  their 
money  and  brains  into  making  Massachusetts  a  manu- 
facturing state.  Embargo  and  war  had  acted  as  a  pro- 
hibitive tariff  on  English  manufactures;  and  just  be- 

213 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

fore  the  war  ended  two  scions  of  shipping  families, 
Francis  C.  Lowell  and  Patrick  T.  Jackson,  prepared 
against  peace  by  setting  up  power  looms  at  Waltham, 
in  the  first  complete  American  cotton  factory.  Against 
the  will  of  the  shipping  community,  they  obtained  a 
protective  tariff  in  1816;  and  within  a  generation  the 
manufacturing  cities  of  Lowell,  Lawrence,  Chicopee, 
and  Manchester,  had  been  established  by  capital  ac- 
cumulated through  neutral  trading.  Every  country 
town  with  a  good-sized  brook  or  river  set  up  a  textile 
or  paper  mill  or  iron  foundry;  and  a  similar  expansion 
in  shoemaking  altered  the  economy  of  fishing  villages. 
The  center  of  interest  in  Massachusetts  shifts  from 
wharf  to  waterfall;  by  1840  she  had  become  predomi- 
nantly a  manufacturing  state. 

Yet  the  same  grit  and  enterprise  that  made  this 
corner  of  the  United  States  into  a  great  workshop, 
managed  to  retain,  and  even  to  increase,  its  maritime 
activities.  The  merchants  could  no  longer  obtain  spe- 
cial favors  for  their  class.  They  were  unable  to  main- 
tain a  distinct  political  party.  Federalism,  after  a 
placid  and  powerless  Indian  summer,  melted  into 
dominant  Republicanism  by  1825.  Daniel  Webster, 
the  child  whom  it  had  raised,  seceded  to  high  protec- 
tion in  1828,  and  Boston  ratified  his  change  by  electing 
'Nathan  Appleton  to  Congress  against  Henry  Lee,  a 
leading  East- India  merchant  and  brilliant  writer  on 
free  trade.  The  mercantile  and  shipping  community 
then  made  the  best  terms  it  could  with  the  Whig 
Party.  At  the  price  of  prohibitive  duties  on  India 
cottons  and  cheap  English  woolens,  and  a  heavy  tariff 
on  wool,  hemp,  and  iron,  it  obtained  low  schedules 
for  other  Oriental  goods,  fruit  and  wines,  and  exotic 
products  that  did  not  compete  with  "infant  indus- 
tries." Manufacturing  stimulated  the  import  of  wool 

214 


JOSEPH  PEABODY 


THE  PASSING  OF  SALEM 

from  Smyrna  and  South  America,  of  coal  from  Phila- 
delphia, and  cotton  from  the  Gulf  ports  and  Charles- 
ton; it  provided  a  new  export  medium,  domestic  cot- 
tons, which  Yankee  vessels  introduced  into  the  world's 
markets;  and  it  greatly  increased  the  buying  power  of 
New  England.  Many  of  the  old  mercantile  families, 
who  became  pioneer  manufacturers,  still  remained 
shipowners,  reluctant  to  lose  all  touch  with  the  element 
that  raised  them  from  obscurity;  and  merchant-ship- 
owners invested  their  surplus  in  manufacturing  stock. 
Ships  lay  idle  when  looms  were  still,  and  the  ebb  and 
flow  of  commercial  prosperity  passed  inland  with  the 
east  wind. 

A  surprisingly  large  tonnage  managed  to  follow  with 
profit  the  old  routes  established  in  Federalist  days; 
proving  that  superior  skill,  not  merely  war  conditions, 
was  at  the  bottom  of  the  earlier  prosperity.  Boston 
remained  the  principal  North  American  emporium  for 
East-Indian,  Baltic,  and  Mediterranean  products  until 
the  Civil  War.  And  Massachusetts,  though  mutilated 
by  the  separation  of  Maine  in  1820,  remained  the  lead- 
ing shipowning  state  until  1843,  when  passed  by  New 
York.  Maritime  history  is  punctuated  by  depressions, 
when  money  was  "tighter  than  the  skin  on  a  cat's 
back,"  by  periods  of  inflation,  and  by  the  panics  of 
1819,  1837,  and  1857.  But  on  the  whole  there  was 
progress,  both  in  technique  and  in  earnings.  The  usual 
post-bellum  inflation  was  liquidated  in  1819.  A  toil- 
some advance  in  the  eighteen-twenties  was  followed  by 
perceptible  speeding-up  in  the  thirties,  full-tide  pros- 
perity in  the  forties,  and  a  glorious  culmination  in  the 
fifties,  with  the  clipper  ship. 

Concentration  was  the  order  of  the  day.  In  her 
struggle  to  keep  pace  with  New  York,  Boston  ab- 
sorbed the  foreign  commerce  and  shipping  of  every 

215 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

other  Massachusetts  seaport.  The  capital  in  twenty 
years'  time  recovered  the  losses  from  a  decade  of  re- 
strictions and  war.  Newburyport,  Beverly,  Salem, 
Marblehead,  and  Plymouth,  after  a  brave  effort  to 
pick  up,  turned  to  manufacturing.  New  Bedford  and 
Gloucester,  Wellfleet  and  Provincetown,  survived 
through  specialization  in  whale,  mackerel,  and  cod- 
fisheries. 

"Newburyport  has  withered  under  the  influence  of 
Boston,"  wrote  Caleb  Gushing  in  1825.  Her  popula- 
tion declined  from  7634  in  1810  to  6375  in  1830.  The 
Middlesex  Canal,  by  tapping  the  Merrimac  River  at 
Chelmsford,  diverted  from  Newburyport  the  lumber 
and  produce  of  southern  New  Hampshire.  Portland, 
Boothbay,  and  Bangor,  in  the  thriving  state  of  Maine, 
were  exporting  their  lumber  and  fish  direct,  undermin- 
ing her  West-India  trade.  Gloucester  absorbed  a  large 
part  of  her  fisheries,  and  those  of  Ipswich  as  well. 
Deep  slumber  rested  upon  Newburyport.  William 
Lloyd  Garrison,  the  inspired  printer's  devil,  tried  to 
arouse  her  with  a  new  journal,  the  "Free  Press." 
High  Street  rubbed  its  eyes  and  rolled  over,  mumbling 
"Jacobin!"  Then  Garrison  followed  the  white  sails  to 
Boston. 

Marblehead  made  a  brave,  and  partially  successful, 
effort  to  revive  her  Baltic,  South  American,  and  West- 
Indian  trade  after  the  war.  In  August  and  September, 
1821,  she  had  three  entries  from  St.  Petersburg,  two 
from  Brazil,  and  two  from  Martinique;  all  of  them 
schooners  and  brigantines  from  seventy-five  to  one 
hundred  tons  burthen.1  But  by  1840  her  most  success- 

1  One  of  them,  the  schooner  Sarah,  seventy-four  tons,  was  the  last 
command  of  John  Roads  Russell,  who  as  a  private  in  Colonel  Glover's 
regiment  had  rowed  the  boat  that  ferried  Washington  across  the  Dela- 
ware. 

216 


THE  PASSING  OF  SALEM 

ful  merchants,  such  as  Robert  Chamblett  Hooper,  had 
moved  to  Boston;  and  the  rest  put  their  money  into 
fishing  schooners  and  shoe  shops.  Lucy  Larcom  has 
excited  our  pity  for  Hannah  at  a  Window  Binding 
Shoes  in  Marblehead,  awaiting  the  return  of  fisherman 
Ben.  Cold  statistics,  however,  place  Hannah  among 
eleven  hundred  Marbleheaders  producing  annually 
over  a  million  pairs  of  shoes,  worth  twice  the  average 
catch  of  the  fishing  fleet.  Clearly,  there  were  no  eco- 
nomic grounds  for  Hannah's  loneliness! 

Salem  as  a  seaport  died  hard.  The  merchant-ship- 
ping firm  of  Silsbee,  Stone  &  Pickman,  formed  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  lasted  until  1893,  when  their  (and 
Salem 's)  last  square-rigger,  the  Mindoro,  left  Derby 
Wharf  to  become  a  coal  barge.  Yet  Salem  was  pros- 
trated by  the  war.  Her  overseas  trading  fleet  declined 
from  182  sail  in  1807  to  57  in  1815,  and  never  again  did 
she  attain  the  tonnage  or  the  entries  of  pre-embargo 
days.  William  Gray's  departure  to  Boston  in  1808  be- 
gan a  process  that  did  not  stop.  The  removal  of  an- 
other leading  family  of  merchants  and  shipmasters  — 

Old  Low,  old  Low's  son, 

Never  saw  so  many  Lows  since  the  world  begun  — 

to  Brooklyn  about  1825,  where  they  established  the 
merchant-shipping  firm  of  A.  A.  Low  &  Brother,  was  a 
typical  event  of  the  period  following  1815.  "Nearly 
half  our  commerce  and  capital  are  employed  in  other 
ports,"  stated  a  Salem  newspaper  in  1833. 

It  became  the  practice  for  a  Salem  East-Indiaman  to 
make  two  or  three  round  voyages  before  returning  to 
the  home  port,  in  the  meantime  piling  up  a  balance 
for  the  owner  at  the  London  banking  house  of  George 
Peabody.  This  famous  son  of  Essex  County  was  born 
of  poor  parents  in  1795,  in  the  part  of  Danvers  after- 

217 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

wards  given  his  name.  His  first  fortune  was  made  in  a 
mercantile  business  at  Baltimore,  between  1815  and 
1837,  when  he  established  himself  in  London  as  a  com- 
petitor to  Baring  Brothers.  Being  a  bachelor,  George 
Peabody  gave  or  bequeathed  the  bulk  of  his  fortune, 
eight  and  a  half  million  dollars,  to  the  various  funds, 
libraries,  institutes,  and  museums  that  now  bear  his 
name.  His  partner  and  successor,  Junius  Spencer 
Morgan,  left  a  son. 

Joseph  Peabody,  a  cousin  of  George,  was  the  wealth- 
iest merchant-shipowner  of  Salem  between  the  em- 
bargo and  1845.  He  emphatically  did  not  belong  to  the 
class  described  by  Hawthorne,  whose  "ventures  go  to 
swell,  needlessly  and  imperceptibly,  the  mighty  flood 
of  commerce  at  New  York  and  Boston."  His  brig  Le- 
ander,  223  tons,  built  at  Salem  in  1821,  made  twenty- 
six  voyages  to  Europe,  Asia  Minor,  Africa,  and  the 
Far  East  in  the  twenty-three  years  of  her  life.  His  ship 
George  made  twenty-one  round  voyages  from  Salem  to 
Calcutta  between  1815  and  1837,  with  such  regularity 
that  she  was  called  the  "Salem  Frigate."  l  Salem  ves- 
sels were  always  manned  in  part  by  local  boys,  but  the 
George  was  a  veritable  training  ship.  No  less  than 
twenty-six  mates  and  forty-five  captains  graduated 
from  the  forecastle  of  this  floating  bit  of  Essex  County. 

"Capt.  West  is  respected  &  loved  by  every  man  on  board,"  writes 
John  Lovett,  her  Beverly  supercargo,  from  Leghorn  in  1818.  "And 
I  must  say  I  think  there  is  but  few  better  men  in  Beverly,  than  Mr. 
Endicott  [the  first  officer]  is.  We  have  an  excellent  crew  —  they  are 
all  young  &  very  smart,  &  noisy  enough.  It  is  always '  drive  on  boys ! ' 
Whether  to  work,  or  to  play,  in  the  heat  or  cold,  wet  or  dry.  Oh  the 

1  The  ship  George  was  1 10  feet,  10  inches  by  27  feet  by  13  feet,  6  inches, 
328  tons,  and  somewhat  of  a  Baltimore  clipper  model.  Built  at  Salem 
for  a  privateer  in  1814,  she  was  purchased  by  Mr.  Peabody  for  $5250. 
It  is  said  that  she  made  Salem  in  forty-one  days  from  the  Cape  of  Good 
Hope  in  1831. 

218 


THE  PASSING  OF  SALEM 

passage  the  Capt.  wished  us  to  take  care  of  ourselves,  when  the 
weather  was  bad  the  Ship  was  all  under  water  and  then  he  would  call 
every  man  from  the  deck  &  forecastle  to  sleep  in  the  cabin  and  then 
he  was  obliged  to  lay  with  us  himself  to  keep  peace  that  the  Super- 
cargo &  mates  might  sleep.  We  have  discharged  the  principal  part 
of  our  Cargo,  and  taken  in  some  goods  for  Calcutta." 

On  arrival  there,  he  writes,  "There  are  now  four  ships 
in  this  port  belonging  to  Mr.  Peabody.  .  .  .  There  are  a 
great  many  Beverly  men  of  my  acquaintance  in  this 
place." 

For  several  years  Joseph  Peabody  competed  in  the 
China  trade,  and  continued  the  famous  pepper  trade 
between  Salem  and  Sumatra.  It  was  in  1830  that  his 
ship  Friendship  was  attacked  and  captured  by  natives, 
off  the  village  of  Quallah-Battoo. 

Salem  had  not  yet  spent  her  maritime  energy.  The 
palm-tree,  Parsee,  and  ship  on  her  new  city  seal  repre- 
sented something  more  than  a  tradition.  Salem  men 
and  Salem  vessels  were  still  seeking  the  spoil  of  Ind, 
usque  ad  ultimum  sinum.  They  clung  to  their  Oriental 
specialties,  like  the  Northwest  Sumatra  pepper  trade, 
as  barnacles  to  a  ship's  bottom ;  and  taught  new  black 
and  brown  peoples  that  Salem  meant  America.  One  of 
our  most  interesting  books  of  American  voyages,  "The 
History  of  a  Voyage  to  the  China  Sea,"  by  Lieutenant 
John  White,  .U.S.N.,  records  a  Salem  adventure  in  the 
brig  Franklin,  which  sailed  up-river  to  Saigon  in  1819, 
and  opened  Cochin-China  to  American  commerce. 
The  Fiji  Islands  were  repeatedly  visited,  in  spite  of 
their  danger.  Nathaniel  L.  Rogers 's  brig  Charles  Dog- 
gett,  William  Driver  master,  lost  five  of  her  crew  at 
Fiji  in  1833.  In  the  very  same  month  that  Mr.  Knight, 
of  Salem,  chief  mate  of  the  Friendship,  was  done  in  by 
Malays  at  Quallah-Battoo,  his  brother  Enoch  was 
killed  by  Penrhyn  Island  savages  on  board  Joseph 

219 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

Peabody's  ship  Glide.  In  the  interesting  sailor's  narra- 
tive of  that  disaster  we  find  the  best  description  of  the 
Fiji  trepang  or  beech-de-mer  trade,  which  was  mo- 
nopolized by  about  six  Salem  vessels  until  the  Civil 
War.  Cannibal  chiefs,  warriors,  women  and  children, 
tempted  by  trinkets  and  Yankee  notions,  came  from  a 
radius  of  a  hundred  miles  to  gather  the  delectable  sea- 
cucumber,  which  the  Salem  men  boiled  in  'pot-houses' 
and  cured  in  '  batter-houses '  erected  on  shore.  The  re- 
sultant trepang,  to  the  annual  value  of  thirty  thousand 
dollars,  was  carried  to  Manila  or  Canton,  whence  it 
found  its  way  into  soup  at  mandarin  banquets.  Occa- 
sionally the  proletariat  of  Fiji  would  unite,  and  make 
Salem  stew  in  the  'pot-houses,'  but  the  Salem  men 
came  back,  and  brought  their  wives. 

Several  of  these  brave  ladies  of  the  sea,  to  our  ulti- 
mate profit,  were  bitten  by  the  literary  microbe  so 
common  in  New  England  of  their  day.  Mrs.  Captain 
Wallis,  of  the  barque  Zotoff,  published  an  interesting 
"Life  in  the  Feejees."  Miss  Lowe,  in  a  delightfully 
girlish  journal,  has  described  life  in  the  foreign  settle- 
ment at  Macao ;  and  her  friend  Mrs.  William  Cleveland 
made  colored  sketches  of  Macao  types  and  incidents. 
A  brief  manuscript  journal  of  her  voyage  to  Timor, 
Macao,  and  Rio  Janeiro  also  survives.  Sailing  from 
Salem  in  the  ship  Zephyr  commanded  by  her  husband, 
on  October  29,  1828,  they  made  Timor  in  the  excellent 
time  of  eighty-nine  days,  and  touched  at  various  small 
islands  and  harbors  to  obtain  sandalwood.  At  Dilli  she 
sketched  the  process;  the  Portuguese  governor,  clad  in 
a  scarlet  silk  shirt  and  white  nankeen  pantaloons,  is  re- 
clining in  a  hammock  slung  between  two  palm-trees, 
watching  his  subjects  loading  sandalwood  logs  on  the 
Zephyr's  tender. 

"If  the  natives  on  the  West  Coast  of  Africa  have 

220 


THE  PASSING  OF  SALEM 

been  temperate,"  remarks  a  historian  of  Salem,  "they 
have  been  so  in  spite  of  the  efforts  of  the  Salem  mer- 
chants to  supply  them  with  the  materials  for  intemper- 
ance. .  .  .  Salem  has  contributed  largely  to  spread  a 
knowledge  of  the  virtue  and  good  qualities  of  New 
England  rum,  of  the  astounding  effects  of  gunpowder, 
and  of  the  consoling  influences  of  Virginia  tobacco, 
among  the  savage  tribes  of  the  West  Coast."1  There 
were  558  arrivals  at  Salem  from  that  part  of  the  world 
between  1832  and  1864.  It  was  an  alongshore  bartering 
business,  to  obtain  ivory,  gold  dust,  palm-oil,  peanuts, 
and  camwood.  Small  brigs  and  schooners,  often  com- 
manded by  their  owners,  made  Africa  somewhere 
about  Sierra  Leone,  traded  along  the  Guinea,  Libe- 
rian,  Ivory  and  Gold  Coasts,  and  as  far  east  as  Akessa. 
At  the  larger  places  business  was  transacted  through 
local  merchants;  but  at  the  smaller  trading  stations 
the  appearance  of  a  Salem  brig  was  a  signal  for  the 
Kroomen  to  launch  their  long  trading  canoes  through 
the  surf.  A  sable  potentate,  dressed  perhaps  in  a  cast- 
off  naval  jacket,  a  hussar's  helmet,  and  a  loin-cloth, 
would  be  received  on  board  and  suitably  'dashed' 
(West  Coast  for  tipped),  to  obtain  his  gracious  per- 
mission for  shipboard  dicker,  while  the  vessel  lay  at 
anchor  or  hove  to.  At  Grand  Bassam  "we  got  a  little 
ivory  and  camphor  wood  and  a  plenty  of  noise  and 
begging,"  writes  the  mate  of  the  African  trading  brig 
Neptune  of  Salem.  "They  always  bring  empty  jugs 
with  them  if  nothing  else  and  plague  a  man's  soul  to 
death  with  entreaties  to  fill  them  with  rum  and  gin  and 
give  them  a  little  tobacco.  A  person  may  judge  of  the 

1  To  which  list  they  might  have  added  cottons,  wooden  clocks,  brass 
pans  and  other  'dicker*  for  the  natives;  and  furniture,  shoes,  and  pro- 
visions for  the  European  residents.  I  have  found  no  instance  of  Salem 
vessels  engaging  in  the  slave-trade  at  this  period. 

221 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

pleasure  and  satisfaction  we  have  in  trading  with  them 
by  supposing  himself  on  board  a  vessel  and  from  one  to 
three  hundred  naked  niggers  on  deck  and  every  one  of 
them  howling  with  the  full  strength  of  their  lungs  to 
make  themselves  heard." 

This  fever-infested  coast  was  dangerous  alike  for 
seamen  and  for  vessels.  Harbors  there  were  none,  and 
the  Salem  brigs  often  needed  their  best  seamanship  to 
claw  out  of  an  anchorage  that  became  a  lee  shore  in  a 
sudden  change  of  wind,  great  rollers  booming  in  at 
short  notice,  and  breaking  in  forty  feet  of  water.  Yet 
the  West  Africa  trade  afforded  a  good  living  to  many 
swapping  Yankees,  who  had  insufficient  capital  for  the 
grand  routes  of  commerce. 

It  was  in  the  early  thirties  that  the  smaller  Salem 
shipowners  began  trading  with  Madagascar,  and  with 
the  neighboring  island  of  Zanzibar.  There  they  ac- 
quired the  friendship  of  the  Sultan,  Seyyid  Said,  and 
monopolized  the  export  of  copal,  a  basic  gum  for  var- 
nish. An  important  local  industry  grew  out  of  this 
trade.  Jonathan  Whipple  discovered  a  new  and  cheap 
method  of  cleaning  copal,  about  1835,  and  about  a 
million  and  a  half  pounds  of  the  gum  passed  annually 
through  his  shop  on  the  Salem  water-front  between 
1845  and  1861. 

Salem's  vicinity  to  the  Danvers  tanpits  and  the  cob- 
blers' shops  of  Essex  County,  enabled  her  to  hold  a 
place  in  the  South  American  hide  trade,  which  led  to 
the  creation  of  a  new  American  industry.  According  to 
local  tradition  it  was  Captain  Benjamin  Upton  who 
brought  from  Para,  Brazil,  in  1824,  the  first  consign- 
ment of  pure  gum  'rubbers.'  Although  heavy  and 
clumsy,  stiff  as  iron  in  cold,  and  liable  to  melt  in  warm 
weather,  these  overshoes  proved  just  the  thing  for 
navigating  the  slushy  streets  of  Salem  in  winter.  The 

222 


THE  PASSING  OF  SALEM 

local  merchants,  sensing  a  new  trade,  sent  Lynn  lasts 
to  Para,  and  thereby  procured  a  better  fit  of  rubber 
overshoes  than  the  original  native  product.  The  Para 
customs  records  show  that  between  1836  and  1842, 
that  port  sent  three  quarters  of  a  million  pairs  of  pure 
gum  overshoes  to  Salem,  almost  as  much  as  to  all  other 
places  combined.  Thus  began  a  new  branch  of  the 
New  England  shoe  industry,  and  the  first  step  towards 
Charles  Goodyear's  momentous  discovery,  in  1839,  of 
the  vulcanization  of  rubber. 

About  1845  the  control  of  the  Para  rubber  trade 
passed  to  New  York,  which  gradually  absorbed  most  of 
Salem 's  South  American  commerce,  except  a  part  of  the 
hides  needed  for  local  consumption.  Direct  voyages 
from  Salem  to  Manila  continued  until  1858;  the  ship 
St.  Paul,  owned  by  Stephen  C.  Phillips,  making  twelve 
round  voyages  in  thirteen  years.  Salem  clung  desper- 
ately to  her  minor  specialties,  such  as  the  trade  with 
Fiji,  Zanzibar,  and  the  West  Coast  of  Africa.  But 
these  were  poor  substitutes  for  the  Calcutta,  the  China, 
and  the  Sumatra  voyages,  which  ended  with  the  death 
of  Joseph  Peabody  in  1844.  Although  for  fifty  years 
thereafter  a  dwindling  number  of  Salem  firms  traded 
with  the  Far  East,  Salem  ceased  to  be  an  important 
seaport  in  1845. 

That  was  the  very  year  when  President  Polk  ap- 
pointed Nathaniel  Hawthorne  surveyor  of  the  port  of 
Salem;  in  1849  President  Taylor  removed  him.  In 
"The  Scarlet  Letter,"  which  Hawthorne  then  wrote  to 
replace  official  emoluments,  he  draws  a  true  and  en- 
during picture  of  Salem's  gentle  decay.  The  last  en- 
tries from  a  dozen  ports  of  world  commerce  had  lately 
been  recorded  in  the  custom  house,  where  Hawthorne 
dreamed  away  the  idle  days  between  the  arrival  of 
occasional  hide  ships,  West  Coast  brigs,  and  Nova 

223 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

Scotia  wood  schooners.  In  1848,  with  the  establish- 
ment of  the  Naumkeag  Steam  Cotton  Mills,  Salem  en- 
tered the  factory  era;  and  a  fluttering  drone  of  spin- 
dles began  to  dominate  the  empty  harbor  and  idle 
wharves. 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE  HUB  OF  THE  UNIVERSE 
1830-1845 

BOSTON  STATE-HOUSE  is  the  hub  of  the  solar  system.  You  could  n't 
pry  that  out  of  a  Boston  man  if  you  had  the  tire  of  all  creation 
straightened  out  for  a  crowbar.  (The  Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast  Table.) 

WHILE  foreign  trade  slipped  away  from  the  smaller 
seaports  of  Massachusetts,  and  riverside  villages  be- 
came manufacturing  cities,  Boston  commerce  in-v 
creased  to  an  extent  undreamed  of  in  Federalist  days. 
Without  annexing  territory,  Boston  grew  from  forty- 
three  thousand  to  sixty-one  thousand  souls  between 
1820  and  1830,  passed  the  hundred-thousand  mark 
about  1842,  and  increased  over  sixty  per  cent  in  the 
fifteen  prosperous  years  that  followed.  In  shipping 
and  foreign  commerce  she  managed  to  remain  a  good 
second  to  New  York,  despite  the  geographical  ad- 
vantages of  Philadelphia,  Baltimore,  and  New  Orleans. 
Never  before  or  since  had  Boston  Harbor  been  so 
crowded,  or  the  waterfront  so  congested  with  sailing 
vessels.1  In  1806,  the  banner  year  of  neutral  trade,  one 
thousand  and  eighty-three  sail  entered  Boston  from 
foreign  ports.  In  the  eighteen-thirties  the  yearly  aver- 

1  Average  annual  arrivals  from  foreign  ports  at  Boston,  by  decades: 
1790-1800    1800-10    1810-20    1820-30    1830-35    1835-41 
569  789  610  787  1199          1473 

Annual  arrivals  of  coasting  vessels  at  Boston: 

1830  1840  1844  1849  1851 

2938  4406  5312  6199  6334 

From  Hazard's  U.S.  Register,  VI,  32,  and  Boston  Shipping  List  and  Price 
Current,  January  3,  1852. 

225 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

age  almost  attained  fifteen  hundred,  and  the  average 
size  of  vessels  was  growing  as  well.  Coastwise  arrivals 
increased  in  the  same  proportion;  and  by  1844,  when  a 
new  and  even  greater  era  began,  fifteen  vessels  entered 
and  left  the  harbor  for  every  day  in  the  year. 

At  the  same  time  Boston  had  become  the  financial 
center  for  New  England  manufacturing,  with  a  bank- 
ing system  that  withstood  the  panic  of  1837;  and  itself 
a  manufacturing  city  for  Yankee  notions,  in  both 
senses  of  the  word.  Next  door  to  the  Boston  merchants 
lived  the  Boston  reformers  and  poets.  Not  that  they 
were  any  more  welcome  than  before  1815;  but  some- 
how they  appeared ;  and  not  infrequently  in  the  midst 
of  a  shocked  shipping  family. 

Old  Boston  was  very  young  in  1840.  "Here  was  the 
moving  principle  itself,"  wrote  Emerson,  "a  living 
mind  agitating  the  mass  and  always  afflicting  the  con- 
servative class  with  some  odious  novelty  or  other." 
Here,  in  1832,  young  Emerson  himself  challenged  the 
past  by  resigning  the  pastorate  of  the  Second  Church. 
Within  a  quarter-mile  of  State  Street  was  the  obscure 
hole  where  'the  freedom  of  a  race  began,'  when  in  1831 
young  Garrison  composed,  set  up,  and  printed  the  first 
number  of  "The  Liberator."  Wendell  Phillips,  off- 
spring of  all  that  was  worthy  and  respectable  on  Bea- 
con Hill,  became  Garrison's  convert  after  seeing  him 
mobbed  by  counting-room  clerks.  Under  the  very  hub 
itself  began  a  new  chapter  in  education,  when  Hor- 
ace Mann,  in  1837,  became  chairman  of  a  new  state 
board.  The  education  of  the  blind  had  already  begun 
through  the  concentrated  brains,  money,  and  benevo- 
lence of  Samuel  Gridley  Howe  and  Thomas  Handasyd 
Perkins.  Longfellow,  son  of  a  member  of  the  Hartford 
Convention,  was  domiciled  under  the  Cambridge  elms 
in  1836;  and  Prescott,  whose  father  belonged  to  the 

226 


THE  HUB  OF  THE  UNIVERSE 

same  council  of  elders,  produced  his  "Ferdinand  and 
Isabella"  the  following  year.  In  Faneuil  Hall,  in  1845, 
Charles  Sumner  flung  down  his  challenge  to  milita- 
rism, which  James  Russell  Lowell  mercilessly  satirized 
in  the  "Biglow  Papers."  Henry  Thoreau,  in  the  mean- 
time, had  found  a  new  way  of  life  at  Concord,  and 
Brook  Farm  had  flourished  and  collapsed. 

There  is  little  connection,  to  be  sure,  between  the 
maritime  history  of  Massachusetts  and  these  high 
lights  of  reform,  revolt,  and  letters.  Commercial  Bos- 
ton published  their  books,  and  financed  such  of  their 
efforts  as  came  under  patchwork  philanthropy ;  but  for 
the  most  part  ridiculed,  condemned,  or  ignored.  In  all 
New  England  letters  there  is  no  genuine  sea  poetry; l 
nothing  to  equal  the  rollicking  chanties  that  the  com- 
mon seamen  improvised.  Yet  maritime  Massachu- 
setts became  articulate  in  Dana's  "Two  Years  Before 
the  Mast"  and  Melville's  "Moby  Dick."  What  sea- 
faring people,  in  the  nineteenth  century,  has  left  prose 
monuments  to  compare  with  these?  Dana,  too,  must 
be  counted  among  the  New  England  reformers.  Many 
well-meaning  people  endeavored  to  save  Jack's  soul, 
philanthropists  provided  him  with  a  snug  harbor  for 
his  old  age;  Dana  endeavored  to  obtain  him  justice. 

New  York  was  the  only  successful  rival  to  Boston 
among  North  American  ports,  if  one  takes  shipping  as 
well  as  commerce  into  consideration.  Her  exports 
steadily  advanced,  while  those  of  Boston  remained 
stationary;  for  Boston,  as  usual,  lacked  a  good  export 
medium.2  The  imports  of  Boston  increased,  but  New 

1  Longfellow's  "Building  of  the  Ship  "and  Whittier's"  Legends  of  New 
England"  perhaps  might  be  stretched  into  this  class,  and  Holmes's 
prose  passage  on  "Sea  and  Mountains"  in  The  Autocrat,  paper  xi.  In 
general,  however,  the  New  England  poets'  attitude  toward  the  sea  is 
that  of  a  summer  boarder  who  is  afraid  to  get  his  feet  wet. 

1  New  England  manufactures  were  absorbed  largely  by  the  domestic 

227 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

York's  increased  still  more,  and  by  1845  the  Empire 
State  had  a  greater  fleet  than  that  of  Massachusetts. 
To  the  extraordinary  commercial  growth  of  New 
York,  the  Bay  State  was  a  leading  contributor.  Many 
of  the  famous  New  York  shipbuilders  and  merchants 
were  Massachusetts  men.  "What  aided  in  making 
great  merchants  in  this  city  thirty  years  ago,"  wrote 
the  author  of  "Old  Merchants  of  New  York  City"  in 
1863,  "was  their  having  foreign  or  New  England  con- 
nections. Most  of  the  shipping  was  owned  in  these 
eastern  places,  and  consequently  the  merchant  in  New 
York  who  had  the  most  extensive  eastern  connec- 
tions did  the  largest  business."  "It  is  well  known," 
writes  another  Manhattan  expert  in  1844,  "that  one- 
third  of  the  commerce  of  New  York,  from  1839  to 
1842,  was  carried  either  upon  Massachusetts'  account, 
or  in  Massachusetts  vessels."  Eighty-three  per  cent 
of  Boston's  imports  were  on  local  account;  i.e.,  pur- 
chased abroad  by  Boston  firms.  But  only  twenty- 
three  per  cent  of  New  York's  imports  were  owned 
by  New-Yorkers.  Manhattan's  geographical  position 
was  such  that  all  the  world. poured  gold  into  her  lap. 
Boston's  growth  resulted  entirely  from  local  enter- 
prise. 

Shipping  is  the  main  explanation  of  Boston's  suc- 
cessful rivalry  with  her  other  American  competitors. 
A  large  proportion  of  the  American  merchant  marine 
was  still  owned  by  Boston  merchants,  who  preferred  to 
handle  the  cargoes  themselves  rather  than  give  Phila- 
delphia or  Baltimore  the  profits  of  distribution.  The 
ability  of  her  merchant-shipowners  to  earn  freights,  to 

market.  The  average  yearly  export  of  domestic  cottons  from  Boston  was 
only  about  $2,250,000  between  1848  and  1856,  although  Massachusetts 
and  New  Hampshire  together  produced  cotton  goods  to  the  value  of 
$28,500,000  in  1850. 

228 


THE  HUB  OF  THE  UNIVERSE 

gather  in  cargoes  from  all  parts  of  the  world,  and  to 
find  the  right  market,  lay  at  the  very  root  of  Boston's 
success. 

The  old  commercial  spirit  kept  Boston  abreast  of 
modern  improvements,  provided  harbor  and  railroad 
facilities,  built  larger  and  faster  vessels,  and  estab- 
lished packet-lines.  Boston's  "principal  advantage  for 
the  security  of  vessels,"  wrote  a  New-Yorker  in  I844,1 
"and  it  is  one  that  distinguishes  this  port  from  other 
principal  ports  of  our  country,"  is  her  "numerous 
docks,  which  are  constructed  with  solid  strength,  and 
run  far  up  into  the  city.  These  are  bordered  by  con- 
tinuous blocks  of  warehouses,  either  of  brick  or  Quincy 
granite,  which  have  an  appearance  of  remarkable  uni- 
formity, solidity,  and  permanence.  By  the  arrange- 
ment of  these  docks  the  numerous  vessels,  whose  trac- 
ery of  spars  and  cordage  line  them  on  either  side,  may 
unship  their  cargoes  at  the  very  doors  of  the  bordering 
warehouses,  and  receive  in  return  their  supplies  for 
foreign  ports  with  the  utmost  security  and  dispatch." 

Central  Wharf,  built  in  1819,  with  fifty-four  brick 
stores  running  down  its  center  for  a  quarter  of  a  mile, 
was  a  fitting  companion  to  India  Wharf.  In  its  upper 
stories  were  three  great  halls  for  auction  sales,  and  in 
its  octagonal  cupola  the  headquarters  of  the  "Sema- 
phore Telegraph  Company,"  to  which  the  approach 
of  vessels  was  signaled  from  Telegraph  Hill  in  Hull. 2 
Below,  as  on  India  Wharf,  were  warehouses,  whole- 
sale stores,  and  counting-rooms  of  leading  mercantile 
firms.  Here  cargoes  from  all  parts  of  the  world  were 
bought  and  sold  and  accounted  for,  without  the  aid  of 
steam  heat,  clacking  typewriter,  and  office  system.  An 

1  James  H.  Lanman,  in  Hunt's  Merchants'  Magazine,  x  (1844). 
1  Central  Wharf  is  shown  on  the  left  of  Salmon's  painting  of  the 
Wharves  of  Boston. 

229 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

odor  of  tar  and  hemp,  mingled  with  spicy  suggestions 
from  the  merchandise  stored  above,  pervaded  every- 
thing. Respectable  men  clerks  (female  clerks,  sir? — 
would  you  have  female  sailors?)  on  high  stools  were 
constantly  writing  in  the  calf-bound  letter-books, 
ledgers,  and  waste-books,  or  delving  in  the  neat 
wooden  chests  that  enclosed  the  records  of  each  par- 
ticular vessel.  Owners,  some  crabbed  and  crusty,  others 
with  the  manners  of  a  merchant  prince,  received  you 
before  blazing  open  fires  of  hickory  or  cannel  coal,  in 
rooms  adorned  with  portraits  and  half-models  of  ves- 
sels. Through  the  small-paned  windows  one  could  see 
the  firm's  new  ship  being  rigged  under  the  owner's  eye. 
The  invention  and  quick  application  of  steam  rail- 
roads was  a  great  aid  to  the  commerce  of  Boston.  After 
playing  with  the  idea  of  a  Boston  and  Albany  canal, 
Massachusetts  wisely  accepted  the  veto  of  her  topogra- 
phy. In  1825  the  Quincy  Granite  Railway,  a  short 
gravity  tramway  connecting  granite  quarries  with 
tidewater,  was  financed  by  Thomas  Handasyd  Perkins. 
Further  progress  was  delayed  for  several  years,  but  by 
1841  railroads  spread  fan  wise  from  Boston  to  Salem 
and  Portsmouth,  New  Hampshire,  to  Lowell  and  other 
manufacturing  centers,  to  Providence  and  to  Albany. 
Other  local  lines,  like  the  Old  Colony  to  Plymouth, 
soon  followed.  The  Western  Railroad,  Boston's  single 
connection  with  the  West,  was  badly  managed,  and 
sent  very  little  through  freight  to  her  wharves  until 
after  the  Civil  War,  when  the  first  grain  elevator  was 
erected  on  the  harbor  front.  But  the  others,  with 
water-front  termini  at  Boston,  and  (in  1850)  a  belt- 
line  connecting  all  with  each  other  and  the  wharves, 
distributed  incoming  cargoes  to  inland  points,  and 
brought  miscellaneous  products  of  farm  and  forest, 
home  workshop  and  factory,  to  Boston  warehouses. 

230 


THE  HUB  OF  THE  UNIVERSE 

More  important  than  the  railroads  as  distributing 
agencies  were  the  sailing  packets.  Every  tidewater 
village  between  Eastport  and  Provincetown,  and  many 
beyond,  had  a  packet-sloop  plying  to  Boston.  Even 
nearby  Hanover  found  it  cheaper  to  send  packet-sloops 
down  the  tortuous  course  of  the  North  River  and 
around  the  Cohasset  reefs  to  Boston,  than  to  use  the 
road.  Plymouth,  in  1830,  had  a  population  less  than 
five  thousand ;  but  six  sloops  of  sixty  tons  each  were  em- 
ployed as  Boston  packets,  exchanging  local  products 
for  raw  materials  used  in  the  textile,  iron,  and  cordage 
factories;  two  schooners  of  ninety  tons  plied  around 
the  Cape  to  Nantucket,  New  Bedford,  and  New  York; 
and  three  other  vessels  brought  lumber  from  Maine. 
A  study  of  our  coasting  trade  would  reveal  many 
quaint  characters,  and  curious  trade  routes.  Skipper 
Brightman,  of  Westport,  for  instance,  collected  fresh 
eggs  from  the  surrounding  country,  and  took  them  to 
Providence  market  in  his  sloop ;  he  calculated  that  by 
1840  he  had  transported  at  least  three  million  and  a 
half  eggs.  Hingham  maintained  rival  Republican  and 
Federalist  lines  of  Boston  packets;  and  so  high  ran 
political  feeling  that  if  a  Federalist  missed  his  boat  he 
would  spend  the  night  on  Long  Wharf  rather  than 
take  the  Jacobin  sloop.  The  Federalist  Rapid,  built  in 
1811,  long  outlasted  her  party,  continuing  in  service 
until  the  Civil  War. 

Short  local  lines  like  these  had  existed  since  colonial 
days,  and  in  the  Federalist  era  there  had  been  "con- 
stant traders,"  as  they  were  advertised,  which  took 
freight  to  New  York,  Albany,  Philadelphia,  Alexan- 
dria, and  Baltimore.  Innovations  of  the  era  of  peace 
were  regular  packet-lines l  to  Southern  ports  and  to 

1  A  packet-line,  as  the  term  was  understood  before  the  Civil  War, 
meant  two  or  more  vessels  whose  owners  advertised  sailings  to  desig- 

231 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

Liverpool.  By  1844  we  find  advertised  in  the  Boston 
papers  the  "  Regular  "  line,  with  four  vessels  running  to 
Havana,  and  others  to  Alexandria  and  Washington,  to 
Savannah,  and  every  ten  days  to  New  Orleans  ("The 
ship  has  fine  'tween  decks  for  dry  goods,  shoes,  &c."). 
Allen  &  Weltch  are  running  packets  to  Norfolk,  Mo- 
bile, and  to  New  Orleans  ("elegant  and  extensive 
accomodation,  no  ice  or  lime  taken").  Nathaniel 
Winsor  competes  for  the  New  Orleans,  the  Savannah, 
and  the  Mobile  traffic;  A.  C.  Lombard's  line  runs  to 
Charleston,  Benjamin  Bruce's  to  Mobile,  W.  B.  Ken- 
dall's to  Savannah,  and  Reed's  to  Norfolk,  City  Point, 
and  Richmond;  Baltimore  is  served  by  the  Manufac- 
turers', the  Union,  and  the  Despatch  lines;  four  differ- 
ent lines  run  to  Philadelphia,  and  at  least  five  to  New 
York. 

Since  colonial  days  there  had  been  constant  traders 
between  Boston  and  Liverpool  and  London;  but  the 
famous  Black  Ball  Line  of  New  York,  established  in 
1816,  was  the  pioneer  transatlantic  packet-line  under 
the  American  flag.  The  Boston  &  Liverpool  Packet 
Company  was  founded  in  1822,  with  four  new  ships 
named  after  jewels,  one  of  which,  the  Boston-built 
Emerald 1  made  an  extraordinary  passage  from  Liver- 
pool to  Boston  under  Captain  Philip  Fox,  of  Cohasset. 
Leaving  Liverpool  on  February  20,  1824,  at  3  P.M., 
she  stayed  with  an  easterly  gale  all  the  way,  and  car- 
ried sail  enough  to  keep  her  lee  rail  buried  until  3  P.M. 
March  8,  when  she  hove  to  for  a  pilot  off  Boston 
Light,  just  seventeen  days  out.  Three  hours  later 
she  anchored  below  Fort  Independence.  The  owners 

nated  ports,  on  schedules  as  regular  as  wind  and  weather  permitted;  and 
which  depended  for  their  profit  on  freight  and  passengers  furnished  by 
the  public,  rather  than  goods  shipped  on  their  owners'  account. 
1  Length  no  feet,  breadth  27  feet,  tonnage  359. 

232 


BRIG  MERCURY  OF  BOSTON  ENTERING  ELSINORE  ROADS,  1825 


PACKET  SHIP  EMERALD  OF  BOSTON 


THE  HUB  OF  THE  UNIVERSE 

thought  she  had  returned  from  some  mishap  on  her 
outward  passage,  and  would  hardly  believe  Captain 
Fox  until  he  handed  them  some  Liverpool  papers  of 
the  day  he  sailed. 

Captain  Fox  was  an  early  example  of  that  breed  of 
sea-captains  called  'drivers,'  for  in  1819  he  had  made 
a  similar  passage  only  a  few  hours  longer,  in  the  Merri- 
mac-built  ship  Herald,  302  tons.  Neither  vessel  ever 
showed  much  speed  under  other  masters.  To  appreci- 
ate his  achievement  we  must  remember  that  the 
Emerald's  record  for  a  westward  transatlantic  passage 
was  seldom,  perhaps  only  once,  surpassed  by  a  sailing 
vessel,  and  then  by  a  clipper  ship  five  times  her  size.1 

The  Boston  &  Liverpool  Packet  Company  failed 
very  shortly,  and  was  succeeded  by  a  new  line  in  1827, 
for  which  several  packet-ships  of  about  425  tons  each 
were  built  to  order  at  Medford  and  Boston.  The  ac- 
commodation plans  of  one  of  these,  the  Dover  (121  feet 
long,  built  at  Charlestown  by  John  M.  Robertson  in 
1828),  show  a  forty- five  foot  main  cabin  with  eleven 
staterooms  about  six  feet  square;  a  library,  wine  and 
spirit  room,  covered  deck  abaft  the  mainmast,  for 
passengers'  use  and  a  "bathing  room"  (by  the  bucket 
method  probably)  on  the  port  quarter.  The  charge 
for  cabin  passage  was  $140,  including  "mattresses, 
bedding,  wines,  and  all  other  stores." 

1  Captain  Clark  (Clipper  Ship  Era,  247)  states  that  the  record  is  fif- 
teen days  Rock  Light  to  Sandy  Hook,  made  by  the  Andrew  Jackson 
(1676  tons)  in  1860.  The  famous  Dreadnought's  fastest  westward  passage 
was  nineteen  days.  For  a  good  example  of  the  untrustworthiness  of 
second-hand  and  subsequent  statements  of  sailing  ships'  records,  com- 
pare the  yarns  about  the  Emerald's  passage  in  R.  W.  Emerson's  Journals, 
in,  204  (told  him  in  1833  on  shipboard);  Nathaniel  Spooner,  Gleanings 
from  the  Records  of  the  Boston  Marine  Society  (1879),  98;  H.  A.  Hill, 
Trade  and  Commerce  of  Boston  (1894),  121,  with  Edmund  P.  Collier  (who 
took  the  pains  to  examine  contemporary  and  reliable  sources),  Cohasset's 
Deep-Sea  Captains,  13. 

233 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

Both  packet-lines  succumbed  for  the  same  cause: 
Boston's  inability  to  furnish  return  cargoes.  England, 
unlike  the  Baltic  and  Mediterranean,  imported  her 
East-  and  West-Indian  goods  in  her  own  bottoms.  No 
money  could  be  made  in  the  miscellaneous  notions — 
sassafras,  corn  husks,  cow  horns,  and  rubber  shoes  — 
that  Boston  was  shipping  to  Liverpool  at  this  period. 
The  packets  were  forced  to  Southern  ports  for  an  out- 
ward cargo  of  cotton;  and  this  detour  lost  them  their 
passenger  business.  Not  until  1844,  when  the  Train 
Line  was  founded,  did  Boston  get  a  Liverpool  sailing 
packet  service  of  any  vitality. 

As  early  as  1825  the  Boston  merchants  began  to  talk 
of  a  transatlantic  steamship  line.  The  matter  had  to 
wait  until  Samuel  Cunard  founded  his  North  American 
Royal  Mail  Steam  Packet  Company,  in  1839.  Greatly 
to  the  delight  of  Bostonians,  Mr.  Cunard  chose  their 
city  as  his  United  States  terminus.  A  wharf  and  docks 
at  East  Boston  were  leased  to  him  rent  free;  and  on 
June  2,  1840,  the  pioneer  Cunarder  Unicorn,  700  tons, 
entered  the  harbor.  Boston  had  hardly  recovered 
from  the  banquets  given  in  her  honor  when  the  Bri- 
tannia steamed  in,  bearing  Mr.  Cunard  himself;  and 
a  new  set  of  festivities  commenced.  A  fortnightly 
schedule  of  side-wheelers  was  soon  established,  greatly 
to  the  disgust  of  New  York,  which  had  only  one  trans- 
atlantic steam  packet  to  Boston's  four.  In  January, 
1844,  when  Boston  Harbor  froze  out  to  Fort  Inde- 
pendence —  an  event  that  comes  hardly  once  a  genera- 
tion —  the  local  merchants,  to  escape  the  jeers  of  New 
York,  had  a  channel  cut  for  the  Britannia  to  get  to  sea. 

The  average  length  of  the  first  thirty  passages  of 
Cunard  liners  to  Boston,  including  the  stop  at  Halifax, 
was  one  hour  less  than  fifteen  days.  Within  a  decade, 
the  time  had  been  reduced  by  thirty  hours.  Rarely  a 

234 


THE  HUB  OF  THE  UNIVERSE 

sailing  packet  would  make  better  time  than  this  on  an 
eastward  passage;  but  for  westward  passages  the 
Emerald's  record  was  never  surpassed  by  a  packet- 
ship,  and  seldom  approached.  The  average  was  nearer 
forty  days.  A  great  Train  packet-ship  in  the  fifties 
once  took  fifty-six  days  to  make  Boston  against  west- 
erly gales,  and  a  New  York  liner  once  required  sixteen 
weeks.  The  sufferings  of  the  Irish  immigrants,  who 
came  to  Boston  in  these  and  even  less  speedy  and  com- 
modious sailing  vessels,  were  hardly  inferior  to  those 
of  the  seventeenth-century  Puritans  who  founded  our 
first  settlements. 

The  maritime  enterprise  of  Massachusetts  seemed 
to  crumple  up  before  the  problem  of  steam  navigation. 
On  western  waters  the  steamboat  became  an  estab- 
lished institution  before  the  Peace  of  Ghent;  but  Yan- 
kees, for  a  generation  after,  regarded  a  steamer  trip  as 
a  reckless  form  of  sport.  They  felt  much  safer  under 
sail.  The  shipwrecks  on  a  lee  shore,  broachings-to  and 
"all  hands  lost,"  of  which  the  interior  read  with  horror, 
seemed  light  risks  in  comparison  with  bursting  boilers, 
scalding  steam,  and  "burning  to  the  water's  edge." 
Even  within  my  recollection,  old  ladies  would  ask  for 
a  stateroom  on  the  Bangor  boat  "as  far  as  possible 
from  the  boiler." 

Coastwise  steam  packet-lines  were  established  very 
slowly.  In  1 8 1 7  a  group  of  Salem  men  purchased  in  New 
York  the  steamboat  Massachusetts,  and  attempted 
to  establish  a  route  between  Salem  and  Boston.  Al- 
though they  advertised  liberally  in  the  newspapers, 
offering  the  public  a  trip  around  the  bay  at  a  dollar  a 
head,  no  'write-up'  appeared,  or  passengers  either. 
The  Salem  "Gazette"  even  described  a  "melancholy 
occurrence"  on  the  Potomac,  a  steamboat  accident 
with  details  "too  shocking  to  relate,"  at  a  time  when 

235 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

the  Massachusetts  was  trying  to  drum  up  trade.  She 
was  sold  to  the  southward,  and  wrecked.  A  New 
Bed  ford-Nan  tucket  service  was  attempted  the  next 
year  in  the  Eagle,  but  withdrawn  for  want  of  patron- 
age. A  tiny  steam  tug,  the  Merrimack,  was  placed  on 
the  Middlesex  Canal  in  1818,  and  several  times  at- 
tained Concord,  New  Hampshire ;  but  proved  a  finan- 
cial failure. 

Beyond  a  daily  summer  service  to  Nahant,  wliich 
began  in  1818,  Boston  had  no  steamboat  facilities  until 
1824,  when  a  Maine  corporation  established  a  line 
from  Boston  'down  East.'  The  Medford-built  steam- 
boat Patent  left  Boston  every  Tuesday  for  Portland 
and  Bath.  There  one  could  transfer  to  the  steamboat 
Maine  (a  local  product  of  two  schooners'  hulls,  fas- 
tened catamaran  fashion),  for  Boothbay,  Owl's  Head, 
Camden,  Belfast,  Sedgwick,  Cranberry  Isles,  Lubec, 
and  Eastport.  The  entire  journey  consumed  five  days, 
spending  the  nights  in  harbors  along  the  coast.  A  di- 
rect line  to  the  Penobscot  was  established  in  1833, 
with  the  steamboat  Bangor.  Replaced  by  a  larger  boat 
in  1842,  and  sold  to  the  Turkish  government,  this  160- 
foot  sidewheeler  cheerfully  proceeded  to  Constanti- 
nople under  her  own  steam,  calling  for  coal  at  Nova 
Scotia,  Fayal,  Gibraltar,  and  Malta. 

The  remaining  story  of  Massachusetts  steam  navi- 
gation before  1860  is  one  of  costly  failures  in  transat- 
lantic enterprises,  ambitious  projects  that  came  to 
nothing,  and  a  slow  improvement  in  the  down  East, 
Nantucket  and  Long  Island  Sound  service.  Down  to 
the  Civil  War  steam  played  a  very  small  part  in  the 
commerce  of  Massachusetts. 


236 


THE  HUB  OF  THE  UNIVERSE 

Boston  of  1 830,  already  outgrown  her  original  penin- 
sula, was  unable  to  make  land  fast  enough  to  prevent 
both  commerce  and  population  spilling  over  into 
near-by  islands  and  necks.  Charlestown  was  more 
populous  in  1860  than  the  whole  of  Boston  in  1800; 
and  East  Boston,  which  as  Noddle's  Island  had  just 
twenty-four  inhabitants  in  1825,  passed  the  fifteen 
thousand  mark  within  thirty  years.  East  Boston  owed 
its  sudden  rise  to  a  shipbuilding  industry,  which  in 
twenty  years'  time  produced  the  finest  sailing  ships 
that  the  world  had  ever  seen.  Owing  to  lack  of  timber, 
which  all  New  England  shipyards  had  drawn  from 
their  immediate  neighborhood  and  back-country,  Bos- 
ton had  declined  as  a  shipbuilding  center.  In  1834  the 
pioneers  of  East  Boston  purchased  land  and  erected 
a  sawmill  on  Grand  Island  in  Niagara  River,  transport- 
ing the  timber  to  Boston  by  Erie  Canal  and  Albany 
sailing  packet.  When  Samuel  Hall,  of  the  old  North 
River  breed  of  master  builders,  established  a  yard  at 
East  Boston  in  1837,  the  future  of  that  place  was 
assured. 

No  sooner  had  Boston  acquired  a  municipal  govern- 
ment than  it  resumed  the  process  of  pulling  itself  a  few 
yards  nearer  the  sea,  by  filling  in  the  old  Town  Cove, 
whose  creeks  and  docks  ran  up  into  the  heart  of  the 
city.  Josiah  Quincy,  the  second  mayor,  turned  out  to 
be  as  far-sighted  and  enterprising  in  municipal  affairs 
as  he  had  been  narrow-minded  and  reactionary  in  the 
affairs  of  the  nation.  His  monument  is  Quincy  Market 
and  the  surroundings;  completed  in  1827  at  a  cost  of 
over  a  million  dollars.  Unlike  modern  municipal  im- 
provements, Quincy  Market  not  only  paid  for  itself, 
but  has  returned  a  handsome  income  to  the  city.  A 
stone's  throw  from  the  market  was  a  new  town  wharf, 
where  market  boats  could  land  their  provisions.  Com- 

237 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

mercial  Street  was  laid  out  to  the  northward  along  the 
heads  of  the  wharves,  filling  up  many  a  noisome  dock 
on  its  way.  To  the  southward,  India  and  Broad 
Streets  made  the  water-front  until  Atlantic  Avenue 
cut  off  another  bight  of  harbor  in  1868. 

Charles  Bulfinch  was  employed  in  Washington  from 
1817  to  1830,  and  made  few  designs  after  his  return. 
The  mode  of  his  successors  in  the  public  architecture 
of  Boston,  Isaiah  Rogers,  Ammi  B.  Young,  and  Alex- 
ander Parris,  was  the  neo-classic,  with  heavy  Doric 
pillars  and  pediment; -their  material,  smooth  Quincy 
granite,  a  stone  without  the  mineral  constituents  to 
acquire  an  agreeable  patina,  but  which  takes  on  a  cer- 
tain dingy  impressiveness  with  age.  Their  masterpiece 
was  the  "new  Custom  House"  constructed  between 
1837  and  1848  at  the  head  of  the  tongue  of  water  be- 
tween Central  and  Long  Wharfs.  Its  classic  pediment 
and  monolithic  granite  pillars  —  each  brought  from 
Quincy  by  thirty-two  yoke  of  oxen  —  now  mask  the 
foundations  of  the  twentieth-century  Custom  House 
Tower. 

The  center  of  mercantile  and  municipal  Boston  in 
1840  was  the  Old  State  House,  at  the  head  of  State 
Street.  Built  in  1748  to  house  the  Province  govern- 
ment, its  walls  had  once  resounded  with  the  eloquence 
of  Otis  and  the  Adamses.  After  the  state  government 
had  moved  to  its  Bulfinch  front  on  Beacon  Hill,  the 
Old  State  House  became  the  town,  and  subsequently 
the  city  hall.  But  there  was  plenty  ot  room  to  spare. 
The  small  size,  and  still  more  the  modest  government 
of  the  Boston  of  1840,  is  brought  home  to  us  when  we 
find  that  this  three-story  brick  building,  no  by  38 
feet,  housed  not  only  the  municipal  government,  but 
the  post-office  and  a  merchants'  club.  In  the  ground- 
floor  room  at  the  Washington  Street  end,  Nathaniel 

238 


THE  HUB  OF  THE  UNIVERSE 

Greene,  with  fifteen  other  deserving  Democrats,  a 
messenger  and  a  porter,  handled  Boston's  mail.  Over- 
head was  the  hall  of  the  Common  Council.  Opposite, 
in  the  old  Council  Chamber,  "the  chief  magistrate  of 
the  city,  together  with  the  City  Clerk,  remain  through 
the  day  in  the  discharge  of  their  ordinary  duties,"  and 
the  Board  of  Aldermen  meet  on  Monday  evenings.  In 
the  attic,  and  around  the  central  stairs,  were  the  offices 
of  all  other  city  officials.  Under  the  aldermen's  cham- 
ber, looking  down  State  Street,  was  Topliff's  News 
Room,  a  subscription  club  and  reading-room  for  Bos- 
ton merchants.  Newspapers  and  periodicals  from  all 
parts  of  the  world,  a  complete  register  of  entrances  and 
clearances  in  American  and  foreign  ports,  and  bulle- 
tins from  foreign  correspondents,  were  kept  on  file. 
Samuel  Topliff  had  a  system  of  signals  from  Long 
Island  in  the  harbor  to  his  house  on  Fort  Hill,  to  in- 
form him  of  arriving  vessels,  when  a  swift  rowboat  that 
he  maintained  would  put  out  to  obtain  the  latest  for- 
eign news.  The  Boston  newspapers  of  1840,  lacking 
an  Associated  Press  to  give  them  such  foreign  news  as 
seemed  wise  for  the  people  to  know,  used  Mr.  Topliff 
as  a  news  bureau. 

The  Boston  merchants  still  continued  their  eight- 
eenth-century custom  of  meeting  on  'change,  at  one 
o'clock  every  week  day,  to  discuss  business  and  politics 
before  going  home  to  their  two  or  three  o'clock  dinner. 
That  formidable  rite  over,  they  'took  the  air'  in 
chaise  or  sleigh  on  the  Mill  Dam,  or  otherwise  amused 
themselves  while  clerks  carried  on  business  in  the 
counting-rooms.  'Change  had  been  somewhat  broken 
up  into  cliques  by  the  practice  of  dispersing  to  adjoin- 
ing insurance  offices  in  wet  or  cold  weather.  In  order 
to  restore  a  community  spirit,  a  new  Merchants'  Ex- 
change building  was  erected  on  State  Street  in  1842. 

239 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

Thither  removed  the  Topliff  News  Room,  and  the  pre- 
vious year  the  municipal  government  had  moved  to 
the  Court-House  that  Bulfinch  built  in  1810  on  the 
site  of  the  present  City  Hall.  The  Old  State  House 
was  then  given  over  to  shops  and  offices. 

During  the  generation  following  the  war,  fashionable 
Boston  covered  the  open  pastures  and  spacious  gardens 
of  Beacon  Hill,  with  blocks  of  houses  in  smooth-faced 
red  brick.  Their  architecture  retained  enough  im- 
press of  Bulfinch  to  be  vastly  superior  to  anything  that 
followed,  but  sacrificed  his  sense  of  proportion  to  a 
fashion  for  long,  high-studded  rooms,  and  ignored  the 
fine  detail  that  gave  half  its  charm  to  Federal  architec- 
ture. Louisburg  Square,  and  the  North  side  of  Mount 
Vernon  Street,  are  the  best  surviving  examples  of  this 
style  of  the  early  thirties.  In  the  flush  days  of  the  early 
fifties  the  newly  rich  turned  toward  the  newer  South 
End,  where  they  surrounded  graceful  squares  and 
lined  broad  avenues  with  brown-stone  fronts  and  high 
stoops,  which  they  speedily  abandoned  when  the  Back 
Bay  was  filled  in.  Western  Avenue  or  the  Mill  Dam 
(now  Beacon  Street)  was  completed  in  1821  across  the 
Back  Bay,  which  sheet  of  water,  after  a  further  cutting 
up  by  railroad  embankments,  became  a  veritable  open 
cesspool.  After  prolonged  litigation  the  filling  in  of 
the  Back  Bay  ("with  tomato  cans  and  hoop  skirts,"  as 
the  ancient  jest  records)  began  in  1858. 

Many  of  the  leading  merchants  had  remained  faith- 
ful to  the  older  South  End,  to  be  near  their  counting- 
rooms  and  the  harbor.  Summer  Street,  with  provin- 
cial and  Federal  mansions  surrounded  by  gardens  and 
shaded  by  great  elms,  was  the  favorite  residence 
of  retired  shipowners.  A  wall  of  Chinese  porcelain 
screened  the  house  of  John  P.  Gushing  from  vulgar 
gaze;  the  door,  opened  by  Chinese  servants,  disclosed 

240 


THE  HUB  OF  THE  UNIVERSE 

a  veritable  museum  of  Eastern  art.  The  first  shop  in- 
vaded Summer  Street  in  1847;  Bulfinch's  incompa- 
rable crescent  on  Franklin  Place  was  replaced  by  gran- 
ite business  blocks  between  1857  and  1859;  and  by  the 
Civil  War  this  section  was  almost  wholly  given  over  to 
business. 

Despite  the  rise  of  manufacturing,  merchants  con-  VN 
tinued  to  dominate  the  social  life  of  Boston.  In  the  old 
directories  one  finds  under  the  heading  of  "  Merchants, 
principally  ship  owners  and  importers  of  cargoes  of 
Russia,  South  America,  Calcutta,  Canton,  European 
and  West  India  Goods,  etc.,"  most  of  the  leading  busi- 
ness men  in  Boston.  Many  left  fortunes  that  are  still 
intact;  a  few  left  some  trace  in  local  history. 

Robert  Bennet  Forbes  had  the  most  original  brain, 
and  the  most  attractive  personality  of  any  Boston 
merchant  of  his  generation.  His  first  sea- voyage  was 
made  in  1811  as  a  six-year-old  passenger  with  his 
mother  in  the  fish-laden  topsail  schooner  Midas,  to 
join  his  father  Ralph  B.  Forbes  in  France.  The  whole 
family,  including  the  baby,  James  Murray  Forbes, 
afterwards  a  famous  railroad  builder,  returned  in  an 
armed  Baltimore  clipper  in  1813,  escaping  the  British 
blockading  squadron  by  a  running  fight.  Perhaps  it 
was  his  short  French  residence  that  gave  Bennet  his 
frank,  impetuous  nature,  so  foreign  to  his  Scots  blood 
and  Yankee  upbringing. 

Although  a  nephew  of  the  great  T.  H.  Perkins, 
young  Bennet  found  no  short  cut  to  fortune.  Shipping 
before  the  mast  in  the  Canton  Packet  at  the  age  of  thir- 
teen, "with  a  capital  consisting  of  a  Testament,  a 
Bowditch,  a  quadrant,  a  chest  of  sea  clothes,  and  a 
mother's  blessing,"  he  rose  to  be  master  at  twenty, 
passed  but  six  months  ashore  in  ten  years  of  China 
trading,  and  commanded  his  own  ship  at  twenty-six. 

241 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

At  twenty-eight  he  entered  the  firm  of  Russell  &  Co., 
Canton,  and  rose  to  its  head  in  eight  years  more.  In 
1840  he  became  merchant-shipowner  in  Boston;  and 
engaged  in  various  picturesque  and  benevolent  side 
activities.  An  early  convert  to  the  screw-propeller  and 
the  iron  steamer,  he  would  have  had  Massachusetts 
lead  in  steam  as  in  sail;  he  did  introduce  auxiliary 
steamers  to  the  waters  of  China,  and  built  the  first 
ocean-going  twin-screw  iron  tugboat,  which  was  ap- 
propriately named  R.  B.  Forbes. 

The  merchants  of  Boston  were  quick  to  respond 
whenever  disaster  came  to  the  toilers  of  the  sea. 
About  1840  a  group  of  Boston  gentlemen  sent  a  cargo 
of  provisions  to  famine-stricken  Madeira,  the  product 
of  whose  vineyards  had  brought  cheer  to  themselves 
and  gout  to  their  grandfathers.  The  grateful  people  re- 
turned the  relief  ship  Nautilus  laden  with  their  choicest 
wine;  and  I  have  happily  ascertained  that  the  "Nau- 
tilus Madeira"  is  not  yet  entirely  consumed.  In  1841 
a  disastrous  storm  at  Cape  Ann  brought  charity  nearer 
home.  But  the  Irish  famine  of  1846-47  brought  the 
greatest  charitable  'drive'  of  this  period.  Early  in 
1847  a  New  England  Relief  Committee  for  the  Famine 
in  Ireland  and  Scotland  was  organized  at  Boston,  with 
Mayor  Quincy  as  chairman.  Through  free  advertising 
and  local  committees,  cash  and  provisions  to  the  value 
of  over  $150,000  (of  which  $115,500  from  Massachu- 
setts) were  quickly  collected  in  New  England,  and  a 
few  hundred  dollars  additional  came  in  from  Yankees 
in  the  West,  all  forwarded  to  the  wharves  free  of  trans- 
portation charges.  Congress,  at  the  request  of  Robert 
C.  Winthrop,  lent  the  sloops-of-war  Jamestown  and 
Macedonian.  The  former  began  to  load  at  Boston  on 
St.  Patrick's  Day.  Local  Irishmen  completed  the 
work  in  record  time,  and  on  March  28  the  vessel,  laden 

242 


THE  HUB  OF  THE  UNIVERSE 

to  the  danger  point  and  officered  by  civilian  volunteers 
under  R.  B.  Forbes,  caught  a  fresh  northwest  breeze 
from  her  wharf.  Through  northeast  gales  and  with 
roaring  westerlies  in  that  boisterous  season  on  the 
Western  Ocean,  Captain  Forbes  drove  the  Jamestown 
without  mercy,  mindful  of  the  starving  children  of 
Erin.  Fifteen  days  and  three  hours  out  from  Boston, 
he  let  go  both  anchors  in  Cork  Harbor.  Few  sailing 
packets  at  any  season  have  made  a  faster  passage. 
But  she  had  only  transported  one  quarter  of  New  Eng- 
land's contributions.  Captain  Forbes,  refusing  flatter- 
ing invitations  to  Dublin  Castle  and  London,  drove 
her  back  to  Boston,  and  hastened  to  New  York  to  load 
the  Macedonian,  which  the  New  York  relief  commit- 
tee had  been  unable  to  fill.  Four  merchant  ships  and 
two  steamers  were  required  to  take  the  balance.  Had 
Old  England  shown  the  same  prompt  generosity  as 
New  England,  there  need  have  been  no  famine  in 
Ireland. 

Once  more,  Boston's  bread  cast  upon  the  waters 
returned  after  many  days ;  in  the  stomachs  of  brawny 
Irishmen  who  came  to  build  her  railroads,  tend  her 
looms,  and  control  her  politics.  Furthermore,  the 
Jamestown's  voyage  began  a  regular  grain  trade  be- 
tween Boston  and  Great  Britain. 

Two  years  after  this  errand  of  mercy,  Captain 
Forbes,  now  aged  forty-five,  was  the  hero  of  a  collision 
at  sea  between  the  Cunard  side-wheeler  Europa  and 
the  barque  Charles  Bartlett  of  Plymouth,  laden  with 
emigrants.  Leaping  overboard,  he  passed  the  end  of  a 
rope  around  a  fat  German,  and  clung  to  him  while  both 
were  alternately  jerked  out  of  water  and  plunged  under 
it  by  the  rolling  of  the  ship  to  which  the  rope  was  fast. 
Then  taking  bow  oar  in  a  lifeboat,  he  helped  pull  more 
people  out  of  water.  This  was  only  one  of  a  series  of 

243 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

adventures  that  make  his  "Personal  Reminiscences" 
one  of  the  best  books  of  its  kind. 

Captain  Forbes  was  also  one  of  the  pioneer  yachts- 
men of  New  England.  Yachting  in  Massachusetts  re- 
sulted from  a  new  custom  of  the  merchants,  a  summer 
residence  by  the  sea.  In  Colonial  and  Federalist  days, 
Boston  and  Salem  were  so  salty  themselves  that  the 
few  who  felt  the  need  of  a  "change  of  air"  took  it  in- 
land, at  a  country  seat.  Horticulture  was  the  gentle- 
manly hobby  for  a  shipowner.  But  as  Massachusetts 
'/..  turned  inland  for  profit,  she  returned  seaward  for  pleas- 
ure. Thomas  Handasyd  Perkins  set  a  new  fashion 
when,  in  1817,  he  built  a  stone  cottage  just  above  the 
Spouting  Horn  at  Nahant. 

This  rugged  peninsula  at  the  north  margin  of  Boston 
Bay,  a  miniature,  even  rockier  Marblehead,  had  re- 
mained a  mere  sheep-pasture  for  lack  of  a  proper  har- 
bor. After  the  war  several  Boston  families  began 
boarding  in  the  few  native  houses,  and  in  1818  crowds 
of  excursionists  came  by  the  steamboat  Eagle  to  view 
Swallow  Cave,  Pulpit  Rock,  Natural  Bridge,  and  other 
features  that  appealed  to  a  romantic  age  in  literature. 
Samuel  A.  Eliot  erected  a  worthy  example  of  the  Greek 
revival  in  1821;  Frederic  Tudor,  the  ice  king,  built 
a  tasteful  stone  cottage  in  1825,  established  a  remark- 
able garden,  and  set  out  elm-trees.1  The  first  Nahant 
Hotel,  also  of  stone,  was  built  on  East  Point  in  1820, 
on  the  site  of  Senator  Lodge's  present  voting  residence ; 
and  quickly  became  the  center  of  fashionable  summer 
life  on  the  New  England  coast.  Other  mercantile  fam- 
ilies followed  the  dean  of  their  order;  and  by  1860 
Nahant  exhibited  every  known  atrocity  in  cottage 

1  Like  almost  everything  else  Mr.  Tudor  did,  the  setting  out  of  elms 
was  scoffed  at  —  "no  tree  would  grow  on  Nahant."  The  Tudor  elms 
now  make  one  of  the  most  handsome  avenues  of  trees  in  New  England. 

244 


THE  HUB  OF  THE  UNIVERSE 

architecture,  and  had  fairly  earned  its  jocose  subtitle 
of  "Cold  Roast  Boston." 

This  peaceful  capture  of  Nahant  by  the  merchant 
princes  began  a  process  that  has  utterly  transformed 
the  New  England  sea-front.  Swampscott,  for  exam- 
ple, was  a  poor  fishing  village  until  1815,  and  mainly 
that  for  another  forty  years.  'Farmer'  Phillips  began 
taking  a  few  summer  boarders  the  year  of  peace.  In 
twenty  years  this  business  had  so  expanded 1  that  one 
of  our  earliest  barrack- like  summer  hotels  was  erected, 
on  the  site  of  the  present  Ocean  House.  In  1842  a  mer- 
chant of  Boston  offered  four  hundred  dollars  an  acre 
for  a  farm  next  the  hotel,  and  the  astonished  native 
threw  down  his  rake  and  ran  for  a  lawyer  to  get  the 
deed  signed  before  the  Bostonian  came  to  his  senses! 
'Cottages'  began  to  spring  up  along  the  picturesque 
bluffs  and  beaches;  and  to-day  Swampscott  is  part 
summer  resort,  part  bourgeois  suburb  of  Lynn  and 
Boston. 

The  nucleus  of  the  present  Gold  Coast  from  Beverly 
Cove  to  Eastern  Point  began  between  1844  and  1846, 
when  four  Bostonians  of  mercantile  stock,  and  a  retired 
Salem  shipmaster,  purchased  the  better  part  of  the 
shore-front  of  Beverly  Farms ;  and  Richard  Henry  Dana 
established  the  first  summer  estate  in  Manchester. 
The  native  who  sold  his  hundred-acre  seashore  farm  to 
Charles  C.  Paine  for  six  thousand  dollars  (possibly  a 
hundredth  part  of  its  value  to-day),  felt  rather  badly 
about  the  price.  "These  city  men  don't  know  nothing 
about  farming  land,"  he  said,  and  threw  in  a  yoke  of 
white  oxen  to  square  the  bargain  with  his  conscience! 
It  was  not  the  fault  of  these  newcomers  that  the  North 

1  'Aunt  Betsey'  Blaney,  for  room  and  board  in  1830  charged  three 
dollars  a  week,  "which  was  considered  high,  as  the  boarders  often  waited 
upon  themselves." 

245 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

Shore  eventually  became  a  millionaire?'  club.  They 
only  asked  to  be  let  alone  in  their  simple  pleasures  of 
boating  and  fishing,  and  driving  along  the  twisty  lanes 
of  Essex  County  —  weather-rusted  houses  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  with  tiny  detached  shoe  shops,  elbowed 
apple-trees  dropping  their  fruit  over  stone  walls,  dark 
pine  woods  where  witches  used  to  lurk,  glimpses  of  sea 
and  islands  and  white  sails  from  close-nibbled  sheep- 
commons. 

About  the  same  time  the  picturesque  shore-line  and 
excellent  shooting  at  Cohasset  attracted  thither  a  few 
Boston  families;  and  Daniel  Webster  maintained  his 
magnificent  physique  by  fishing  and  farming  on  his 
Marshfield  estate.  J.  Murray  Forbes  acquired  a  foot- 
hold at  Naushon  in  1843,  and  the  whole  island  fifteen 
years  later. 

"What  can  be  more  magnificent,"  wrote  this  same 
Forbes  at  sea  in  1830,  "  than  a  strong  gale  (right  astern, 
mind)  of  a  clear  winter's  day  —  the  ship  springing  for- 
ward under  reefed  topsails,  and  nothing  to  be  seen  but 
the  white  foamy  tops  of  the  waves.  There  is  nothing 
that  elevates  the  spirits  so  much  as  this,  it  is  like  riding 
a  fiery  horse,he  goes  at  his  own  speed,  but  he  carries  you 
where  you  guide."  Memories  of  these  halcyon  days 
led  the  Boston  merchants  to  yachting,  after  their  re- 
tirement from  the  sea.  Others,  like  Captain  Charles 
Blake,  of  the  barque  Griffin,  returned  to  the  ocean 
after  acquiring  from  her  bounty  the  privilege  of  leis- 
ure; trading  about  the  Mediterranean  and  South  Sea 
for  the  mere  joy  of  it.  Yachting,  at  best,  is  a  poor  imi- 
tation ;  yet  even  a  sail  in  sheltered  waters,  if  the  breeze 
be  brisk,  gives  something  of  that  mental  uplift  of  which 
Forbes  speaks,  and  the  skipper  of  the  smallest  sail- 
boat that  boasts  a  crew  is  kin  to  the  proudest  clipper 
ship  commander. 

246 


IO 

Tt- 

00 


THE  HUB  OF  THE  UNIVERSE 

Apart  from  the  two  famous  yachts  owned  by  George 
Crowninshield,  Jr.,  and  small  undecked  pleasure  boats, 
Massachusetts  yachting  begins  in  1832  when  Benja- 
min C.  Clark,  a  Boston  Mediterranean  merchant  who 
passed  his  summers  at  Nahant,  purchased  the  pilot 
schooner  Mermaid.  John  P.  Gushing,  just  returned 
from  China,  then  had  built  for  him  the  sixty-foot 
pilot  schooner  Sylph  and  made  his  young  kinsman 
Robert  Bennet  Forbes  her  sailing  master.  Her  first 
cruise,  with  Captains  'Bill'  Sturgis  and  Daniel  C. 
Bacon  as  guests,  was  a  night  run  from  Boston 
around  the  Cape  to  Wood's  Hole,  which  she  made  in 
fourteen  hours.  Before  returning,  the  Sylph  won  the 
first  recorded  American  yacht  race,  from  Vineyard 
Haven  to  Tarpaulin  Cove,  against  the  schooner  yacht 
Wave,  owned  by  Commodore  John  C.  Stevens,  of  Ho- 
boken. 

In  1835  R.  B.  Forbes  was  elected  commodore  of  the 
Boat  Club,  an  association  of  young  merchant-ship- 
owners and  gentlemen  of  leisure,  which  owned  a  thirty- 
ton  schooner  yacht,  the  Dream.  Three  years  later, 
with  Daniel  C.  Bacon  and  Willaim  H.  Bordman, 
Forbes  built  another  schooner,  the  Breeze,  which 
started  her  career  by  racing  the  Dream  from  Boston 
to  Marblehead  for  lunch,  and  then  home;  the  Breeze 
flying  an  empty  champagne  bottle  in  lieu  of  ensign. 
The  following  year  came  a  famous  ocean  race,  from 
Long  Island  to  Halfway  Rock  off  Marblehead  and 
back,  between  the  New  York  sloop  Osceola  and  Mr. 
Clark's  new  thirty-six-foot  schooner  Raven,  which 
won. 

Off  Nahant,  on  July  19,  1845,  was  held  the  first 
open  yacht  race  in  Massachusetts.  A  contemporary 
painting,  here  reproduced,  gives  a  scene  at  this  pioneer 
regatta.  From  left  to  right  the  contestants  are  the 

247 


Stars  and  Stripes,  a  Swampscott  fisherman;  the  sloop 
Evergreen,  owned  by  an  aboriginal  Johnson  of  Na- 
hant ;  Mr.  Clark's  Raven,  the  schooner  Avon  (on  the  port 
tack),  owned  by  Edward  Phillips;  the  Northern  Light;  l 
and  the  schooner  Quarantine,  owned  by  the  City  of 
Boston.  Of  these  only  the  Avon  and  Raven  started  in 
the  race,  but  there  were  nine  other  contestants  not 
shown  in  this  picture.  Wind  was  steady,  from  the 
S.S.E.,  the  hotel  was  full  of  guests,  the  rocks  covered 
with  spectators,  and  a  fisherman's  dory  race  (shown 
in  the  foreground)  furnished  additional  sport.  The 
course  was  triangular,  around  a  stake-boat  off  the 
Graves,  around  Egg  Rock,  and  thence  to  the  starting- 
line  off  Nahant.  The  schooner  Cygnet,  owned  by  John 
E.  Thayer,  a  Long  Wharf  boatman,  finished  first,  but 
the  little  Raven  came  in  only  four  minutes  later,  and 
won  on  a  time-allowance. 

The  fame  of  this  regatta,  the  boats  owned  by  her 
summer  residents,  and  a  huge  new  hotel,  made  Nahant 
the  yachting  center  of  Massachusetts  Bay  until  the 
Civil  War;  although  some  very  fast  yachts,  including 
the  Cygnet,  were  kept  for  hire  by  the  Long  Wharf  boat- 
men, who  took  many  a  party  of  jolly  fellows  for  a  Sun- 
day cruise  down  harbor  and  bay.  For  many  years 
almost  all  the  yachts  were  of  schooner  rig,  and  differed 
not  from  the  prevailing  type  of  pilot-boat  and  clipper 
fishing  schooner;  indeed,  a  pilot-boat  was  often  pur- 


1  This  schooner  yacht  (62  feet,  8  inches,  by  17  feet  by  7  feet,  3  inches, 
70  tons),  designed  by  Lewis  Winde,  a  Danish  naval  architect,  settled  in 
Boston,  who  made  a  specialty  of  pilot  boats,  was  built  at  Boston  in  1839 
at  a  cost  of  $7000,  and  owned  by  William  P.  Winchester,  a  beef-packer. 
She  was  the  largest  and  smartest  yacht  in  Massachusetts  waters  for 
many  years.  Her  bends  were  scraped  bright  and  varnished,  she  had 
black  topsides  with  a  crimson  stripe,  and  her  crew  wore  red  shirts  and 
white  trousers.  She  was  lost  in  the  Straits  of  Magellan  in  1850,  when  on 
her  way  to  San  Francisco. 

248 


THE  HUB  OF  THE  UNIVERSE 

chased  for  a  yacht,  or  vice  versa;  and  several  yachts 
were  sent  to  Pacific  waters  to  be  used  as  pilot-boats  or 
opium  clippers.1  Light  sails  and  outside  ballast  were 
unknown.  But  in  1854  the  centerboard  sloop  James 
Ingersoll  Day,  built  at  Stonington,  Connecticut,  came 
around  the  Cape,  beat  everything  in  Massachusetts 
Bay,  and  forced  the  local  designers  to  create  a  yacht- 
ing type.  Although  George  Steers,  of  New  York,  with 
his  America  had  the  start  of  them,  the  Boston  yacht 
designers  pulled  ahead  after  the  Civil  War.  Corin- 
thian yachting  is  the  only  maritime  activity,  save 
fishing,  in  which  Massachusetts  still  retains  her  pre- 
eminence. 

Summer  vacations  and  summer  yachting  were  the 
privilege  of  a  very  few,  until  after  1870.  Almost  every 
Boston  boy  learned  to  swim,  to  pull  an  oar,  and  to  sail 
a  small  spritsail-rigged  boat.  His  education  was  not 
complete  until  he  had  gotten  lost  in  the  fog,  and  spent 
the  night  on  an  island  in  Boston  harbor.  But  another 
half-century  passed  before  the  income  or  the  taste  of 
bourgeois  and  mechanic  allowed  acquisition  of  summer 
camp  and  catboat. 

Bourgeois  Boston  inhabited  the  West  End,  the  filled- 
in  Mill  Pond  land  and  South  Cove,  and  overflowed  to 
South  and  East  Boston.  The  proletarian  quarters 
were  the  Broad  Street-Fort  Hill  section,  and  the  North 
End,  east  of  Hanover  Street.  Here  were  the  sailors' 
boarding-houses  and  dance-halls,  and  here  lived  the 
longshoremen,  truckmen,  and  Irish  laborers.  Over 
half  were  foreign-born;  congestion  and  the  infantile 

]l  The  pilot  schooner  Fanny  (7  feet  by  18  feet,  n  inches,  by  7  feet, 
aj  inches,  82  tons),  designed  by  William  Kelly  and  built  by  his  brother 
Daniel  at  East  Boston  in  1850,  made  San  Francisco  ma  the  Straits  of 
Magellan  in  108  days  from  Boston,  and  served  as  pilot-boat  to  the 
Golden  Gate  for  twenty-six  years. 

249 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

death-rate  were  becoming  a  public  scandal.  For  Bos- 
ton had  no  city  water  supply  until  I848,1  nor  until 
then  one  scrap  of  plumbing. 

In  North  Square,  the  heart  of  the  workers'  district, 
Father  Taylor  set  his  net  for  sinners.  This  remarkable 
man  was  born  in  Virginia  in  1793,  went  to  sea  at  seven, 
and  sailed  the  globe  for  ten  years.  In  1810,  still  a 
foremast  hand,  a  vessel  brought  him  into  Boston. 
Strolling  along  Tremont  Street,  he  heard  the  bell  toll- 
ing in  the  new  steeple  of  Park  Street  Church,  where,  to 
use  his  own  words,  he  "put  in,  doffed  hat  and  pennant, 
scud  under  bare  poles  to  the  corner  pew,  hove  to,  and 
came  to  anchor."  A  Methodist  preacher  completed  his 
conversion.  War  followed,  and  Edward  T.  Taylor 
experienced  privateering  and  Dartmoor.  Returning  to 
Boston,  he  peddled  tinware  about  the  country-side, 
exhorted  sinners  in  the  Old  Rock  school-house  at 
Saugus,  rode  the  Methodist  circuit  of  eastern  Massa- 
chusetts, and  was  called  by  the  Boston  Port  Society 
to  its  seamen's  chapel.  A  new  Sailors'  Bethel  was 
erected  for  him  on  North  Square  in  1833,  and  for 
the  next  thirty-eight  years  he  walked  its  pulpit  like  a 
quarterdeck. 

"I  have  never  heard  but  one  essentially  perfect  orator,"  wrote 
Walt  Whitman  in  his  "November  Boughs."  "During  my  visits  to 
'the  Hub,'  in  1859  and  '60  I  several  times  saw  and  heard  Father 
Taylor.  In  the  spring  or  autumn,  quiet  Sunday  forenoons,  I  liked 
to  go  down  early  to  the  quaint  ship-cabin-looking  church  where  the 
old  man  minister'd  —  to  enter  and  leisurely  scan  the  building,  the 
low  ceiling,  everything  strongly  timber 'd  (polish 'd  and  rubb'd  appar- 
ently), the  dark  rich  colors,  the  gallery,  all  in  half-light  —  and  smell 
the  aroma  of  old  wood  —  to  watch  the  auditors,  sailors,  mates, 
'matlows,'  officers,  singly  or  in  groups,  as  they  came  in  —  their  physi- 
ognomies, forms,  dress,  gait,  as  they  walk'd  along  the  aisles  — 

1  Save  a  supply  piped  in  hollow  pine  logs  from  Jamaica  Pond,  which 
reached  comparatively  few  homes. 

250 


FATHER  TAYLOR 


THE  HUB  OF  THE  UNIVERSE 

their  postures,  seating  themselves  in  the  rude,  roomy,  undoor'd, 
uncushioned  pews  and  the  evident  effect  upon  them  of  the  place, 
occasion,  and  atmosphere. . . . 

"Father  Taylor  was  a  moderate-sized  man,  indeed  almost  small 
(reminded  me  of  old  Booth,  the  great  actor,  and  my  favorite  of  those 
and  preceding  days),  well  advanced  in  years,  but  alert,  with  mild 
blue  or  gray  eyes,  and  good  presence  and  voice.  Soon  as  he  open'd 
his  mouth  I  ceased  to  pay  any  attention  to  church  or  audience  or 
pictures  or  lights  and  shades;  a  far  more  potent  charm  entirely 
sway'd  me.  In  the  course  of  the  sermon,  (there  was  no  sign  of  any 
MS.,  or  reading  from  notes),  some  of  the  parts  would  be  in  the  high- 
est degree  majestic  and  picturesque.  Colloquial  in  a  severe  sense,  it 
often  lean'd  to  Biblical  and  Oriental  forms.  Especially  were  all  allu- 
sions to  ships  and  the  ocean  and  sailors'  lives,  of  unrivall'd  power  and 
life-likeness.  Sometimes  there  were  passages  of  fine  language  and 
composition,  even  from  the  purist's  point  of  view.  A  few  arguments, 
and  of  the  best,  but  always  brief  and  simple. ...  In  the  main,  I 
should  say,  of  any  of  these  discourses,  that  the  old  Demosthenean 
rule  and  requirement  of  'action,  action,  action,'  first  in  its  inward 
and  then  (very  moderate  and  restrain'd)  its  outward  sense,  was  the 
quality  that  had  leading  fulfilment. 

"I  remember  I  felt  the  deepest  impression  from  the  old  man's 
prayers,  which  invariably  affected  me  to  tears.  Never,  on  any  similar 
or  other  occasions,  have  I  heard  such  impassion'd  pleading  —  such 
human-harassing  reproach  (like  Hamlet  to  his  mother,  in  the 
closet)  —  such  probing  to  the  very  depths  of  that  latent  conscience 
and  remorse  which  probably  lie  somewhere  in  the  background  of 
every  life,  every  soul.  For  when  Father  Taylor  preach'd  or  pray'd, 
the  rhetoric  and  art,  the  mere  words,  (which  usually  play  such  a  big 
part),  seem'd  altogether  to  disappear,  and  the  live  feeling  advanced 
upon  you  and  seiz'd  you  with  a  power  before  unknown.  Everybody 
felt  this  marvellous  and  awful  influence.  One  young  sailor,  a  Rhode 
Islander  (who  came  every  Sunday,  and  I  got  acquainted  with,  and 
talked  to  once  or  twice  as  we  went  away),  told  me, '  that  must  be  the 
Holy  Ghost  we  read  of  in  The  Testament.' . . . 

"  I  repeat,  and  would  dwell  upon  it  (more  as  suggestion  than  mere 
fact)  —  among  all  the  brilliant  lights  of  bar  or  stage  I  have  heard  in 
my  time  ...  I  never  had  anything  in  the  way  of  vocal  utterance  to 
shake  me  through  and  through,  and  become  fix'd,  with  its  accom- 
paniments, in  my  memory,  like  those  prayers  and  sermons  —  like 
Father  Taylor's  personal  electricity  and  the  whole  scene  there  — 
the  prone  ship  in  the  gale,  and  dashing  wave  and  foam  for  back- 

251 


ground  —  in  the  little  old  sea-church  in  Boston,  those  summer  Sun- 
days just  before  the  secession  war  broke  out." 

The  fame  of  Father  Taylor  was  more  widespread 
than  that  of  any  Massachusetts  author  or  statesman, 
for  it  penetrated  every  part  of  the  world  visited  by 
ships  and  sailors.  When  he  died  in  1871,  "just  as  the 
tide  turned,  going  out  with  the  ebb  as  an  old  salt 
should,"  Father  Taylor  was  mourned  by  thousands  of 
humble  folk  who  had  never  so  much  as  heard  of 
Emerson  and  Webster. 


The  coming  of  the  Cunarders  increased  the  morale 
of  commercial  Boston  several  hundred  per  cent.  A 
New  York  paper  admitted  that  Boston's  trade  with 
New  Orleans  and  the  Mississippi  Valley  equaled  Man- 
hattan's. Boston  is  "gaining  rapidly  on  her  great  rival, 
New  York,"  crows  Hay  ward's  Gazeteer  in  1846. 
"In  arrivals  from  foreign  ports,  New  York  exceeded 
Boston  in  1839,  606  vessels  ...  in  1844,  only  34  ves- 
sels." So  many  of  Boston's  foreign  entries  were  Nova 
Scotia  schooners  that  the  tonnage  figures  tell  a  differ- 
ent story;  but  her  waterfront  activity  in  the  harbor, 
with  close  to  three  thousand  foreign  and  six  thousand 
coastwise  entries  a  year,  was  prodigious.  If  Boston 
really  expected  to  catch  up  with  New  York  commerce, 
she  was  destined  to  disappointment;  not  even  Yankee 
ingenuity  could  overcome  the  Hudson  and  the  Erie. 
But  in  1 845  the  most  prosperous  decade  in  the  maritime 
history  of  Massachusetts  was  just  beginning. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

SHIPS  AND  SEAMEN  IN  SOUTHERN  SEAS 
1820-1848 

LITTLE  change  can  be  observed  in  the  routes  or  the 
methods  of  Massachusetts  commerce  between  1815 
and  1850.  Maritime  commerce  is  still  a  tale  of  the 
West  Indies  and  South  America,  of  Mediterranean  and 
Baltic,  of  East  Indies  and  China  and  South  Seas,  and  of 
small  coasters  that  assembled  and  distributed  cargoes. 
Certain  routes,  like  the  New  Orleans  and  the  South 
American,  rise  greatly  in  importance;  others,  like  the 
Northwest  fur  trade,  decline;  but  no  new  ones  were 
established,  for  the  excellent  reason  that  our  pioneer 
shipmasters  of  the  seventeen-nineties  had  traced  every 
ocean-way  that  could  be  pursued  with  profit,  until 
new  folk-migrations  made  new  markets  in  California, 
Australia,  and  South  Africa. 

In  1815  the  old  crew  merely  picked  up  the  lines 
which  war  had  loosed,  and  continued  hauling  to  the 
old  chanties.  The  bulk  of  our  overseas  trading  was 
done  by  merchant-shipowners  as  before,  men  who 
owned  fleets  of  vessels  both  large  and  small,  traded 
with  many  countries  on  their  own  account,  chartered 
their  vessels  or  took  freight  for  others  when  opportun- 
ity offered,  distributed  their  cargoes  by  auction  sales 
on  the  wharf  or  through  their  own  wholesale  stores  in 
Boston.  Commerce  was  still  dominated  by  the  men 
who  had  learned  its  secrets  as  captains  and  super- 
cargoes before  the  war.1 

1  Of  the  twelve  officers  of  the  new  Boston  Chamber  of  Commerce 
founded  in  1836,  I  recognize  the  names  of  all  but  three  as  prominent 
merchants  and  shipowners  of  the  Federalist  period. 

253 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

Besides  the  establishment  of  packet-lines,  which  we 
have  already  noted,  one  noteworthy  change  took 
place  in  maritime  technique  between  1815  and  1850  — 
an  improvement  in  the  design,  rig,  and  handling  of 
vessels.  A  shipmaster,  retired  since  1819,  who  took 
passage  fifteen  years  later  on  a  recent  Boston-built 
ship,  was  astonished  at  her  ability  to  carry  sail,  to  beat 
to  windward,  and  to  "tack  in  a  pint  o'  water."  The 
Medford  builders,  in  particular,  had  quietly  evolved 
a  new  type  of  about  450  tons  burthen  which,  handled 
by  eighteen  officers  and  men,  would  carry  half  as  much 
freight  as  a  British  East-Indiaman  of  1500  tons  with 
a  crew  of  125,  and  sail  half  again  as  fast.  Such  a  ship 
cost,  in  1829,  seventy  dollars  a  ton  to  build  or  thirty 
dollars  to  charter  for  a  China  voyage;  she  could  earn 
forty  dollars  a  ton  freight  out  and  home  and  the  in- 
surance rate  was  four  per  cent  for  the  round  passage, 
one  per  cent  less  than  was  charged  Englishmen.  More 
carrying  capacity,  and  greater  speed  than  older  vessels 
of  the  same  burthen,  were  obtained  by  greater  length 
and  depth  in  proportion  to  breadth,  and  a  cleaner  run. 
The  bows  are  still  bluff,  but  have  sweeter  water-lines 
than  the  older  vessels.  Longfellow  has  described  the 
type  in  his  "Building  of  the  Ship": 

Broad  in  the  beam,  but  sloping  aft 
With  graceful  curve  and  slow  degrees, 
That  she  might  be  docile  to  the  helm, 
And  that  the  currents  of  parted  seas, 
Closing  behind,  with  mighty  force, 
Might  aid  and  not  impede  her  course. 

Iron  was  superseding  rope  for  permanent  lashings  such 
as  trusses,  parrels,  and  the  gammoning  of  bowsprits. 
Sails  were  now  made  of  Lowell  cotton  duck,  instead  of 
Russia  linen  or  baggy,  porous  hemp;  and  there  were 
many  more  of  them.  Vessels  of  this  period,  in  fact, 

254 


SHIPS  AND  SEAMEN  IN  SOUTHERN  SEAS 

carried  a  loftier  rig  in  proportion  to  their  length  than 
the  clipper  ships.  Skysails  appear  for  the  first  time  in 
our  merchant  fleet,  and  royal  studdingsails  —  so  small 
that  the  seamen  called  them  the  '  tub  o'  dusters.'  Rus- 
sell Sturgis  describes  sailing  from  Manila  to  Caspar 
Passage  in  1844,  with  eleven  sails  set  on  the  mainmast 
alone.  Quarter-galleries,  quick-work  and  gingerbread- 
work  alike  disappeared ;  leaving  nothing  of  traditional 
adornment  but  a  figure-head  or  billet-head,  and  a  small 
scroll  or  shield  on  the  transom.  The  clean,  stripped, 
youthful-looking  hulls,  in  marked  contrast  to  the 
painted  ladies  of  Federalist  days,  were  clothed  in  dead 
black,  relieved  only  by  a  bright  waist,  or  white  strip 
checquered  by  black  ports. 

In  the  shipbuilding  boom  that  began  about  1831, 
Maine  overtook  her  parent  Massachusetts.  The  great 
shipyards  of  the  Sewalls  and  others  on  the  Kennebec, 
St.  George,  and  Penobscot  rivers  became  serious  com- 
petitors of  the  Mystic  and  Merrimac;  and  small  coast- 
ing vessels  were  constructed  all  along  the  spruce- 
rimmed  shore.  Skeleton  schooners  and  brigs  crowded 
the  shingle  beaches  at  the  head  of  rocky  coves;  then 
noisy  with  the  cheerful  clatter  of  shipbuilding,  now  si- 
lent from  one  year's  end  to  another,  save  for  scream 
of  tern,  and  quork  of  blue  heron. 

Very  different  types  of  vessels  were  needed  for  dif- 
ferent routes.  For  the  cotton-carrying  trade  the  old- 
fashioned  converging  topsides  were  preferred,  to  in- 
crease stability  with  so  light  a  cargo.  But  most  ship- 
owners wanted  vessels-of-all-work,  as  it  were,  which 
could  be  sent  to  any  part  of  the  world  where  chances 
were  good  and  freights  high.  The  finest  type  of  the 
period  was  the  Medford-  or  Merrimac-built  East- 
Indiaman;  seldom  over  five  hundred  tons  burthen,  and 
usually  smaller;  for  the  size  of  vessels  was  just  begin- 

255 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

ning  to  increase.  The  Alert,  which  seemed  so  enormous 
to  Dana  after  his  California  voyage  in  the  brig  Pilgrim, 
was  but  113  feet  long  and  398  tons  burthen.  The 
Rajah,  built  by  J.  Stetson  at  Medford  in  1836,  530 
tons,  140  feet  long,  and  30  feet  beam,  is  cited  as  "a  fair 
specimen  of  our  best  freighting  vessels."  *  They  were 
not  sharp  ships,  or  clipper  ships,  or  one-quarter  the 
size  of  the  most  famous  clippers;  but  they  were  the 
fastest  and  most  economical  ocean  carriers  of  their 
generation.  With  their  burly  bows,  lofty  rig,  flush 
decks,  and  bright  waist  or  painted  ports,  these  old 
Boston  East-Indiamen  have  a  certain  charm  that 
the  clippers  lack.  Happy  they,  born  in  time  to  have 
seen  such  a  ship  rolling  down  from  St.  Helena,  lee  and 
weather  studdingsails  set  alow  and  aloft,  tanned  and 
bearded  sailors  on  her  decks  and  Anjer  monkeys  chat- 
tering in  her  rigging,  wafting  an  aroma  of  the  Far  East 
into  the  chilly  waters  of  Massachusetts  Bay. 

From  1815  to  1840  Yankee  seamen  still  existed. 
A  strong  minority,  in  some  cases  a  majority,  of  foreign- 
ers, especially  Johnny  Bulls  and  Scandinavians,  could 
be  found  in  the  forecastle  of  almost  every  Massachu- 
setts vessel.  But  the  greater  part  of  most  crews  were 
native  Yankee.  'Crimping'  had  not  yet  become  the 
usual  method  of  shipping  a  crew.  Wages  were  lower 

1  In  the  Newburyport  yards,  the  Volant  of  457  tons,  launched  in  1810, 
held  the  record  for  size  until  1836,  when  John  Currier,  Jr.,  built  the 
Columbus,  594  tons,  for  the  Black  Ball  Line.  The  next  record-breakers 
in  size  were  the  Flavio,  698  (1839),  St.  George,  845  (1843),  and  Castillian, 
1000  (1850).  In  the  Medford  yards,  no  vessel  over  435  tons  was  built 
between  1810  and  1832.  The  first  over  500  tons  came  in  1834,  over  600 
in  1837,  over  800  in  1839,  and  the  thousand-ton  mark  was  touched  in 
1849.  The  yards  of  Bath,  Maine,  first  passed  the  soo-ton  mark  in  1836. 
In  1841  the  Sewalls  built  the  Rappahannock,  1133  tons,  for  the  cotton 
trade.  She  was  too  large  to  be  profitable,  and  it  is  said  that  freight 
dropped  a  quarter  of  a  cent  a  pound  whenever  she  appeared  at  New 
Orleans.  Not  until  1852  did  the  Bath  yards  build  another  vessel  above 
1000  tons. 

256 


THE  MEDFORD-BUILT  EAST-INDIAMAN  COLUMBIANA,  1837 


SHIP  DROMO  OFF  MARSEILLES,  1836 
DEEP-SEA  TYPES  OF  THE  THIRTIES 


SHIPS  AND  SEAMEN  IN  SOUTHERN  SEAS 

than  in  Federalist  days  —  eight  dollars  a  month  for 
boys,  ten  for  ordinary  and  twelve  for  able  seamen  on 
long  voyages  —  but  good  men  were  still  attracted  by 
the  chance  to  rise,  for  vessels  were  small,  and  the  pro- 
portion of  officers  to  men  about  one  to  four  or  five.  It 
was  not  uncommon  for  youngsters  of  the  best  families 
to  ship  before  the  mast,  although  these  ship's  cousins, 
as  the  regular  seamen  called  them,  generally  bunked 
in  steerage  or  'tween-decks,  and  played  the  gentleman 
ashore.  "Sailors  are  the  best  dressed  of  mankind," 
wrote  Emerson  in  37°  4'  North,  36°  n'  West.  They 
still  wore  a  distinctive  costume ;  shiny  black  tarpaulin 
hat,  red-checked  shirt,  blue  bell-mouthed  dungaree 
trousers,  navy-blue  pea-jacket  or  watch-coat  off  the 
Horn ;  and  for  shore  leave,  a  fathom  of  black  ribbon  for 
the  hat,  black  silk  kerchief  in  a  neat  sailor's  knot 
around  the  neck,  white  ducks  and  black  pumps. 

The  standard  of  seamanship  was  never  higher.  No 
man  could  be  rated  an  able  seaman  until  he  became  an 
expert  in  the  beautiful  splicing,  seizing,  parceling, 
grafting,  pointing,  worming,  and  serving  which  was 
included  in  the  old-time  art  of  rigging.  Even  an  ordi- 
nary seaman  was  expected,  "to  hand,  reef  and  steer, 
...  to  be  able  to  reeve  all  the  studdingsail  gear,  and 
set  a  topgallant  or  royal  studdingsail  out  of  the  top; 
to  loose  and  furl  a  royal,  and  a  small  topgallant-sail 
or  flying  jib;  and  perhaps,  also  to  send  down  or  cross 
a  royal  yard."  Constant,  hard  work  was  the  rule.  No 
'sogering'  was  allowed  on  Yankee  vessels,  and  the 
treatment  of  the  men  was  sometimes  unnecessarily 
harsh,  as  Dana  relates.  Medicine  chests  were  carried, 
and  many  a  stern  master  nursed  a  sick  seaman  back 
to  health  in  the  cabin.  But  how  these  deep-sea  sailor- 
men  must  have  laughed  at  the  unconscious  humor  of 
Dr.  Lowe's  "Sailor's  Guide  to  Health"  which  accom- 

257 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

panied  the  medicine  chests!  Among  the  rules  in  this 
omniscient  manual  were,  "Use  tobacco  sparingly  if  at 
all " ;  "Eat  freely  of  vegetables,  especially  on  long  voy- 
ages"; "Observe  regular  hours  for  sleep";  and  "Select 
an  anchorage  to  the  windward  of  the  land." 

It  was  no  laughing  matter,  however,  for  a  sick  sea- 
man who  fell  under  the  care  of  a  captain's  wife,  so 
conscientious  as  Mrs.  William  Cleveland,  of  the  Salem 
ship  Zephyr.  This  good  lady  relates  in  her  journal  for 
1829,  how,  "intending  to  be  on  the  safe  and  cautious 
side,"  while  in  the  fever-infested  waters  of  Timor,  she 
gave  a  chilly  sailor  "a  powerful  dose  of  Calomel  and 
Jalap  which  was  afterward  followed  by  a  dose  of  castor 
oil  and  numerous  injections,  blisters  upon  the  calf  of 
both  legs  after  soaking  them  well  in  hot  water,  a  blister 
on  the  breast,  throat  rubbed  with  Cinnamon,  &c.  He 
complained  of  no  pain  excepting  the  headache  .  .  .  soon 
after,  delirium  came  on,  which  continued  but  a  short 
time  when  he  appeared  to  fall  into  a  gentle  quiet  sleep 
..."  —  and  passed  away. 

This  voyage  of  the  Zephyr  is  the  earliest  instance 
that  has  come  to  my  notice  of  a  Massachusetts  ship- 
master taking  his  wife  to  sea.  The  practice  never  be- 
came general  until  after  the  Civil  War,  but  on  short 
voyages  was  not  uncommon  in  the  forties.  Captain 
Caleb  Sprague,  of  Barnstable,  master  of  the  ship 
North  Bend,  writes  from  Bordeaux  in  1844,  "There  is 
9  American  Vessels  here  and  5  of  the  Capts.  have  their 
Wifes. ...  we  have  had  more  invitations  to  dine  than 
we  have  wish'd  as  the  dinners  in  this  Country  are  very 
Lengthy  say  from  3  to  4  houres  before  you  rise  from  the 
Table  and  than  not  dry  for  Wine  etc."  No  wonder 
Mrs.  Sprague  acquired  a  nautical  turn  of  speech,  re- 
marking that  an  ill-fitting  suit  of  clothes  on  her  small 
boy  "set  like  a  shirt  on  a  marlin-spike." 

258 


SHIPS  AND  SEAMEN  IN  SOUTHERN  SEAS 

As  for  eating  and  drinking,  the  age  of  rum  was  pass- 
ing, and  the  age  of  canned  goods  not  arrived.  Water, 
hard-tack,  molasses,  and  'salt  horse'  were  the  stand- 
bys.  Colored  sea-cooks  compounded  these  maritime 
staples  into  the  questionable  amalgams  which  Rufus 
Choate  described  in  one  of  his  glowing  periods  as  the 
"nutritious  hash,  succulent  lob-scouse,  and  palatable 
dandy- funk."  At  Anjer,  where  hogs,  chickens,  and 
fresh  vegetables  were  incredibly  cheap,  shipmasters 
laid  in  a  store  of  them ;  but  before  long  sarcastic  grunts 
and  crows  informed  the  quarterdeck  that  Jack  wanted 
his  salt  junk  again.  As  one  old  shell-back  asserted: 
"Yer  may  talk  of  yer  flummadiddlers  and  fiddlepad- 
dles,  but  when  it  comes  down  to  gen-u-ine  grub,  there 
ain't  nothing  like  good  old  salt  hoss  that  yer  kin  eat 
afore  yer  turns  in  and  feel  it  all  night  a-laying  in  yer 
stummick  and  a-nourishin'  of  yer." 

Seafaring,  at  best,  was  a  rough,  dangerous  calling, 
and  often  rendered  unbearable  by  the  brutality  of  > 
master  or  mate.  The  humanitarian  movement  of  the 
eighteen-thirties  made  a  few  feeble  attempts  to  pro- 
tect Jack  from  injustice  and  extortion.  A  federal 
statute  of  1835  prescribed  severe  punishment  for  an 
officer  who  "from  malice,  hatred  or  revenge"  shall 
"beat,  wound  or  imprison"  a  member  of  his  crew,  or 
inflict  "any  cruel  or  unusual  punishment."  An  act  of 
1840  gave  a  United  States  consul  the  power  to  dis- 
charge, with  three  months'  advance  pay,  a  seaman  of 
whose  cruel  treatment  he  was  convinced.  It  would 
seem,  however,  that  those  laws  remained  a  dead  letter, 
and  that  the  shipmaster's  despotism,  benevolent  or 
otherwise,  remained  unimpaired.  Unscrupulous  law- 
yers, inducing  disgruntled  seamen  to  bring  action  on 
flimsy  grounds,  so  discredited  the  value  of  Jack's  testi- 
mony that  juries  would  seldom  convict  on  it.  And  as 

259 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

United  States  consuls  in  those  days  received  no  sal- 
ary, but  depended  for  their  livelihood  on  commission 
business,  they  seldom  had  the  courage  to  affront  own- 
ers or  officers. 

Nevertheless,  a  foremast  hand  on  a  Yankee  East- 
Indiaman  was  the  best  paid,  best  fed,  and  most  com- 
petent sailor  in  the  world,  regarded  by  coasters,  fisher- 
men, whalers,  and  man-o'-war's-men,  as  the  top-dog 
of  his  profession.  And  the  officers  must  no  more  be 
judged  by  the  brutality  of  Captain  Thompson  than 
other  professions  by  their  black  sheep.  A  Yankee  ship- 
master, in  1840,  was  the  world's  standard  in  ability  and 
in  conduct.  The  Massachusetts  merchant  marine  was 
commanded  for  the  most  part  by  men  of  high  charac- 
ter and  education ;  navigators  who  could  work  lunars  as 
well  as  Bowditch  himself,  and  who  inherited  all  the 
practical  seamanship  of  the  old  school;  "merchant- 
captains"  who  owned  part  of  their  vessel,  and  had  full 
responsibility  in  trading.  Most  of  the  famous  clipper- 
ship  commanders  had  their  training  during  the  thirties 
and  forties,  which  we  may  fairly  call  the  golden  age  of 
the  American  merchant  marine. 


The  old  Northwest  fur  trade  was  resumed  in  1815  by 
several  Boston  firms  which  had  long  been  engaged  in  it. 
Captain  'Bill'  Sturgis,  now  head  of  Bryant  &  Stur- 
gis,  and  Josiah  Marshall,  a  countryman  from  Billerica 
who  had  built  up  an  importing  business  at  Boston 
during  the  Federalist  period,  were  now  the  most  active 
Nor'westmen.  The  letters  of  these  firms  show  little 
change  in  method,  but  a  decline  in  profits.  Competi- 
tors were  many;  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company,  the 
Northwest  Fur  Company,  American  fur-traders  who 

260 


SHIPS  AND  SEAMEN  IN  SOUTHERN  SEAS 

operated  from  St.  Louis,  and  the  Russians,  who  threat- 
ened to  monopolize  all.  In  consequence,  the  sea-otter 
became  too  scarce  and  high  to  continue  an  important 
medium  for  China.  Between  1821  and  1830  the  vessels 
annually  engaged  in  the  Northwest  fur  trade  declined 
from  about  thirteen  to  two.  For  some  years  longer 
William  H.  Bordman,  Jr.,  and  Perkins  &  Co.  found  it 
profitable  to  carry  supplies  to  Sitka  and  the  Hudson 
Bay  posts.  But  by  1837  the  old  Northwest  fur  trade, 
Boston's  high-school  of  commerce  for  forty  years,  was 
a  thing  of  the  past. l 

When  the  fur-traders  departed,  the  settlers  began 
to  arrive.  Hall  J.  Kelley,  an  energetic  and  erratic  Bos- 
ton schoolmaster,  founded  in  1829  an  Oregon  Coloniza- 
tion Society,  which  was  supported  by  Edward  Everett 
and  other  prominent  men.  His  plans  for  peopling  the 
banks  of  the  Columbia  with  picked  New  Englanders 
came  to  naught,  but  his  activities  turned  the  minds  of 
restless  Yankees  to  that  region.  One  of  his  associates, 
a  Cambridge  ice-man  named  Nathaniel  J.  Wyeth,  led 
overland  in  1834  the  first  group  of  permanent  settlers 
to  the  Oregon  country. 

In  the  meantime  another  outpost  of  Massachusetts 
had  been  founded,  at  Honolulu.  In  1819  a  band  of 
Congregational  missionaries  and  three  native  Hawai- 
ians,  "formed  into  a  Church  of  Christ"  at  Park 
Street,  Boston,  took  passage  around  the  Horn  on  the 
brig  Thaddeus,  to  convert  the  heathen.  On  April  4, 
1820,  one  hundred  and  sixty-three  days  out  of  Boston, 
this  Hawaiian  Mayflower  anchored  abreast  the  village 
of  Kailua,  where  the  king  and  queen,  with  hundreds 

1  In  1831  Captain  Dominis,  of  Josiah  Marshall's  brig  Owhyhee,  tried 
the  experiment  of  bringing  pickled  Columbia  River  salmon  to  Boston. 
It  sold  for  fourteen  dollars  a  barrel,  but  the  Treasury  Department  made 
Marshall  pay  duty  on  it,  as  if  purchased  outside  the  United  States,  and 
the  venture  was  not  repeated. 

26l 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

of  their  subjects,  were  playing  in  the  surf.  Later  in 
the  day  the  royal  family  was  entertained  at  dinner  on 
the  brig's  quarterdeck.  King  Liholiho,  dressed  in  a 
feather  wreath,  a  string  of  beads,  and  a  loincloth,  was 
introduced  to  the  missionaries'  wives,  while  George 
Tamoree,  a  graceless  native  member  of  the  party,  fur- 
nished music  for  the  meal  on  an  orthodox  bass  viol. 

The  Boston  missionaries  arrived  in  the  nick  of  time, 
partially  to  off  set  the  demoralization  introduced  by  Bos- 
ton traders  and  Nantucket  whalers.  The  latter  were 
just  beginning  to  use  the  Islands  as  a  base;  the  traders, 
as  we  have  seen,  had  been  coming  for  a  generation 
past.  It  so  happened  that  the  panic  of  1819,  making 
it  difficult  to  procure  specie  for  China,  coincided  with 
a  new  reign  in  the  Sandwich  Islands,  which  took  the 
lid  off  the  sandalwood  traffic.  Kamehameha  I  had  con- 
served this  important  natural  resource,  so  much  in 
demand  at  Canton.  But  Liholiho,  a  weak-minded  and 
dissolute  prince,  cheerfully  stripped  his  royal  domain 
in  order  to  gratify  tastes  which  the  Boston  traders 
stimulated.  They  sold  him  on  credit  rum  and  brandy, 
gin  and  champagne,  carriages  and  harnesses,  clothes 
and  furniture,  boats  and  vessels ;  until  he  had  tonnage 
and  liquor  enough  for  an  old-time  yacht  club  cruise. 

In  1820  Josiah  Marshall  sent  out  from  Boston  two 
small  brigs,  which  were  exchanged  for  sandalwood  at 
Honolulu.  Bryant  &  Sturgis  dispatched  under  the 
command  of  Captain  John  Suter,  the  veteran  Nor'- 
westman,  a  veritable  fleet  consisting  of  the  ships  Tar- 
tar and  Mentor,  brigs  Lascar,  Becket,  and  Cleopatra's 
Barge.  The  latter  was  a  famous  vessel.  Built  at 
Salem  in  1816  for  George  Crowninshield,  Jr.,  a  young 
gentleman  of  leisure,  she  had  taken  him  on  a  trans- 
atlantic yachting  cruise.  Sold  for  a  song  after  his 
death,  she  made  a  trading  voyage  to  Brazil,  and  was 

262 


SHIPS  AND  SEAMEN  IN  SOUTHERN  SEAS 

then  purchased  by  Bryant  &  Sturgis.  The  Hawaiian 
monarch  gave  in  exchange  for  her  an  amount  of  sandal- 
wood  worth  fifty  to  ninety  thousand  dollars,  and  made 
her  his  royal  yacht.1  Her  outward  cargo,  typical  of 
the  trade,  is  listed  on  the  annexed  bill  of  health.  Pos- 
sibly its  rhythmic  phrasing  is  accidental.  But  General 
Henry  A.  S.  Dearborn,  who  as  collector  of  the  port  of 
Boston  signed  this  document,  was  something  of  a  lit- 
terateur. Did  the  romantic  name  and  history  of  the 
Ckopatra's  Barge  inspire  him  to  premature  effort  in 
free  verse? 

The  Barge  was  as  long  as  the  ship  Columbia,  but 
some  of  the  schooners  and  brigs  that  our  Pacific  trad- 
ers sent  around  the  Horn  to  Hawaii  were  even  smaller 
than  Captain  Ingraham's  brig  Hope  or  John  Boit's 
sloop  Union.  James  Hunnewell,  of  Charlestown,  who 
established  a  famous  mercantile  firm  at  Honolulu, 
brought  out  in  1826  a  crank,  leaky  little  schooner 
called  the  Missionary  Packet,  only  fifty-four  feet  long, 
thirteen  feet  beam,  six  feet  depth,  and  thirty-nine 
tons  burthen.  His  passage  of  the  Horn  almost  ended 
his  career,  and  the  single  voyage  took  nine  months. 
While  resting  at  Honolulu  after  his  hard  experience, 
Hunnewell  was  pulled  out  of  bed  by  a  party  of  rollick- 
ing whalemen,  and  induced  to  treat  the  crowd  from  his 
cargo  of  rum.  Disliking  the  quality  of  the  liquor,  they 
forced  the  owner  to  sample  it  himself  before  letting 
him  go! 

This  genial  traffic  continued  about  ten  years,  when 
sandalwood  became  a  drug  in  the  Canton  market,  and 
all  but  extinct  on  the  Islands.  In  the  meantime  New 

1  The  illustration,  from  a  sketch  made  by  Charles  S.  Stewart,  one  of 
the  missionaries,  in  1823,  shows  the  Cleopatra's  Barge  under  Hawaiian 
colors  at  Lahaina  anchorage,  island  of  Maui.  Originally  rigged  as  a 
brigantine  or  hermaphrodite  brig,  she  was  altered  to  a  brig  when  she 
became  a  merchant  vessel. 

263 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

Bedford  and  Nantucket  whalers  were  flocking  to 
Hawaii,  to  'recruit/  as  they  called  it,  with  fresh  pro- 
visions and  Kanakas.  As  many  as  sixty  put  in  at 
Honolulu  in  1822,  and  in  1844  the  total  arrivals  of 
whaling  craft  surpassed  four  hundred.  Their  presence 
greatly  increased  the  difficulties  of  the  missionaries, 
but  proved  a  godsend  to  the  merchantmen  whose 
holds  they  lined  with  oil  and  whalebone,  obtained  in 
Arctic  and  Japanese  whaling  grounds.  At  the  same 
time  the  native  demand  for  American  manufactures 
was  increasing.  Hawaii  by  1830  had  become  the  com- 
mercial Gibraltar  of  the  Pacific;  the  basis  of  a  trade, 
by  Massachusetts  merchants  there  established,  with 
California,  Canton,  Kamchatka,  and  the  smaller 
South  Sea  islands.  Honolulu,  with  whalemen  and  mer- 
chant sailors  rolling  through  its  streets,  shops  filled 
with  Lowell  shirtings,  New  England  rum  and  Yankee 
notions,  orthodox  missionaries  living  in  frame  houses 
brought  around  the  Horn,  and  a  neo-classic  meeting- 
house built  out  of  coral  blocks,  was  becoming  as  Yankee 
as  New  Bedford.  "Could  I  have  forgotten  the  circum- 
stances of  my  visit,"  wrote  a  visiting  mariner  in  1833, 
"I  should  have  fancied  myself  in  New  England."  l 
Even  the  first  constitution  of  the  Kingdom  of  Hawaii, 
issued  by  Kamehameha  III  under  missionary  influ- 
ence, had  a  flavor  of  the  old  Massachusetts  theocracy : 
"  No  law  shall  be  enacted  which  is  at  variance  with  the 
word  of  the  Lord  Jehovah." 

The  Boston  firms  interested  in  Hawaii  extended 
their  operations  to  other  South  Pacific  islands,  violat- 
ing the  old  demarcation  line  at  the  expense  of  Salem. 

1  Francis  Warriner,  Cruise  of  the  U.S.  Frigate  Potomac  (1835),  224. 
Daniel  Webster  about  1840  tried  a  case  at  Barnstable,  Cape  Cod,  that 
involved  the  nature  of  the  entrance  to  the  "harbor  of  Owhyhee."  It 
was  unnecessary  to  call  in  experts,  as  seven  members  of  the  jury  were  in- 
timately acquainted  with  said  harbor. 

264 


SHIPS  AND  SEAMEN  IN  SOUTHERN  SEAS 

Josiah  Marshall's  brig  Inore,  Eliah  Grimes  master, 
even  went  to  the  Marquesas  in  search  of  edible  birds' 
nests,  but  without  success.  A  typical  South  Sea  voyage 
was  that  of  James  Hunnewell's  ship  Tsar,  Sam  Ken- 
nedy master,  a  new  vessel  built  for  the  Russian  trade, 
and  purchased  from  J.  William  Ropes  for  $28,000. 
Although  of  470  tons  burthen,  the  Tsar  required  no 
more  men  to  handle  her  than  a  Nor'westman  of  one- 
quarter  her  size  in  the  eighteenth  century;  for  the 
South  Sea  was  becoming  safer  than  the  Caribbean. 
Clearing  from  Boston  in  the  spring  of  1848,  the  Tsar 
stopped  four  days  at  Rio  Janeiro,  rounded  the  Horn, 
and  let  the  trade-winds  bring  her  to  the  enchanting 
island  of  Tahiti.  For  six  weeks  she  rode  at  anchor 
in  the  landlocked  harbor  of  Papeete  (white  crescent 
beach,  border  of  palms,  orange  and  banana  trees,  half 
concealing  white  cottages  and  thatched  huts;  back- 
drop of  verdure-clad  mountains,  and  slumbrous  pour 
of  surf  on  barrier  reefs).  Goods  were  sold  to  the 
amount  of  $23,712.20,  including  codfish,  lumber,  rice, 
Lowell  and  Amoskeag  cottons,  German  glass,  iron 
safes,  needles  and  thread,  drugs  and  gravestones. 
Some  of  the  knobs  dropped  off  the  safes  when  swung 
out  of  the  hold;  one  of  the  packages  marked  "Tartar 
Emetic"  contained  calomel;  and  one  of  the  grave- 
stones, intended  apparently  for  the  Salem  market,  was 
already  inscribed,  "Sacred  to  the  Memory  of  Maria 
Peabody."  Otherwise  everything  was  in  good  order. 
After  selling  all  the  market  would  take,  Captain 
Kennedy  unloaded  a  large  separate  consignment,  with 
which  Edward  L.  Gray,  Jr.,  who  sailed  on  the  Tsar 
with  his  wife  and  sister,  opened  an  agency  at  Papeete. 
Thence  the  ship  proceeded  to  Honolulu,  and  discharged 
the  rest  of  her  cargo,  including  Merrimack  Prints, 
Hamilton  Ticking,  Denims,  fancy  plaid  linings,  blaii- 

265 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

kets,  salt  provisions,  groceries  and  umbrellas,  shoes 
and  saddlery,  and  —  palm-leaf  hats.  Yankee  mer- 
chants would  carry  coals  to  Newcastle,  if  Newcastle 
wanted  them !  Captain  Kennedy  had  the  owners'  per- 
mission to  proceed  from  the  Islands  on  "any  lawful 
trade  to  any  part  of  the  world  at  peace  with  our  na- 
tion," according  to  his  judgment;  or  even  to  sell  the 
ship.  But  the  whalemen  at  Honolulu  offered  him  a  re- 
turn cargo  of  oil  and  bone,  which  with  Hawaiian  goat- 
skins and  bullock  hides,  and  some  of  the  first  gold- 
dust  extracted  from  the  California  washings,  gave  him 
a  valuable  return  freight. 

When  the  Northwest  fur  trade  died  out,  its  place 
was  taken  by  the  hide  traffic  with  California.  The 
Coast  from  Cape  Mendocino  to  Cape  San  Lucas  had 
long  been  familiar  to  contraband  fur-traders  from 
Massachusetts,  when,  in  1822,  California's  adhesion 
to  the  Mexican  Empire  threw  open  her  ports  to  legi- 
timate commerce.  Before  the  year  elapsed,  William 
Alden  Gale,  of  Boston  (Cuatro  Ojos  the  Calif ornians 
called  him  by  reason  of  his  spectacles),  induced  Bryant 
&  Sturgis  to  send  their  Sachem  to  the  Coast  with  a 
cargo  of  notions  to  exchange  for  hides.  From  that  time 
to  the  Mexican  War  the  Californians  obtained  most 
of  their  merchandise  from  Boston  'hide-droghers,'  as 
these  Pacific  Coast  traders  were  called ;  for  their  return 
cargoes  took  the  bulk  of  California's  hides  into  New 
England  shoe  shops.  In  addition  to  this  direct  trade 
from  Boston  the  sea-otter  business  continued  into  the 
thirties;  New  Bedford  whalers  visited  the  Coast  for 
fresh  beef,  doing  a  little  smuggling  on  the  side ;  Boston 
firms  at  Honolulu  smuggled  in  merchandise  by  swift 
brigs,  using  Santa  Catalina  Island  as  a  base;  and  the 
China  merchants  sent  over  Canton  goods  direct. 
R.  B.  Forbes,  when  visiting  the  Mission  Dolores  at 

266 


\ 


ict  of  £JOo<iton  and 

To  a\\  lo  ^w\\om  VYiese  present*  shall  covue  *. — 
the  Collector  and  Naval  Officer  of  the  Port  of  Ration  and 
Ckarlettoirn,  do,  by  the  tenor  of  these  presents — CERTIFY  and 
make  known,  .that  the  Captain,  Officers,  Seamen,  and  Passenger* 

of  the  -  -£?/*sy called 

/ 
laden  witbx 


is  Captain  ; 

/?s  >/  Officers  and  Seamen,  and 

Passengers,  now  ready  to  proceed  on  a 
voyage  to  "  '  •'"''"    ^3  / 1**"^-  and  elsewhere  beyond  sea, 

<".     f  Vssir it  &s*.      i 

are  all  in  good  health. 

And  ice  do  further  certify — That  no  plague,  or  other  contagious 
or  dangerous  disease  at  present  exists  in  this  port  or  iu  its  vicinity. 


BILL  OF  HEALTH  OF  THE  CLEOPATRA'S  BARGE 


SHIPS  AND  SEAMEN  IN  SOUTHERN  SEAS 

San  Francisco  in  1870,  recognized  among  its  'old 
masters'  some  products  of  Hog  Lane,  Canton,  which 
he  had  sold  the  padres  thirty-five  years  before. 

Secularization  of  the  missions  was  regretted  by  the 
Yankee  traders,  from  its  unsettling  effect  on  business. 
Protestants  were  not  permitted  to  remain  in  Mexican 
California,  but  many  Yankees  of  Puritan  stock  "left 
their  consciences  at  Cape  Horn,"  joined  Mother 
Church,  spoke  Spanish  with  a  down-east  twang,  mar- 
ried Californian  heiresses,  and  absorbed  the  trade  of 
the  country.  Dana  found  Massachusetts  men  estab- 
lished all  along  the  Coast,  from  a  one-eyed  Fall  River 
whaleman  tending  bar  in  a  San  Diego  pulperia,  to 
Thomas  O.  Larkin,  the  merchant  prince  of  Monterey. 

In  the  two  years  (1834-36)  that  Dana  spent  before 
the  mast  in  Bryant  &  Sturgis's  vessels,  the  California 
trade  was  at  its  height.  All  cargoes  had  to  be  entered 
at  the  Monterey  custom  house,  Mexican  duties  were 
from  eighty  to  one  hundred  per  cent,  and  the  regula- 
tions many.  But  the  Mexican  officials,  knowing  Cali- 
fornia's dependence  on  the  Boston  traders,  let  them  off 
with  a  reasonable  lump  sum  per  cargo.  The  ships 
brought  "everything  that  can  be  imagined,  from 
Chinese  fireworks  to  English  cart-wheels,"  including 
even  lumber  (which  the  Californians  were  too  lazy  to 
cut  for  themselves),  and  shoes  made  at  Lynn  out  of 
California  hides.  Part  of  the  cargo  was  disposed  of  on 
shipboard,  the  cabin  being  fitted  up  as  a  variety  store, 
to  which  dark-eyed  senoras  were  conveyed  in  ship's 
boats.  What  they  did  not  buy  was  placed  in  charge 
of  a  resident  agent,  who  peddled  it  out  at  enormous 
profits  (twenty  dollars  for  a  three-dollar  piece  of  Lowell 
print-cloth)  to  the  rancheros,  against  future  deliv- 
eries of  tallow  at  six  cents  a  pound,  and  hides  ('Cali- 
fornia bank-notes ')  at  one  to  two  dollars  apiece,  worth 

267 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

more  than  double  in  Boston.  No  contract  was  signed, 
for  a  Calif  ornian's  word  was  his  bond;  but  the  agents 
employed  cuerreros,  or  hide-brokers,  to  attend  the 
matanzas  (slaughters),  receive  the  hides,  and  convey 
them  in  bullock-carts  to  an  embarcadero  on  the  coast. 
The  Boston  hide-droghers  collected  and  carried  them 
to  San  Diego.  There  each  firm  maintained  salt-vats, 
where  seamen  and  Kanakas  cured  the  hides,  and 
stored  them  until  a  shipload  was  accumulated.  "Since 
the  time  when  Queen  Dido  came  the  hide  game  over 
the  natives  at  Carthage,"  wrote  an  irreverent  grandson 
of  Paul  Revere,  "it  is  probable  that  there  has  been  no 
parallel  to  the  hide-and-go-seek  game  between  Boston 
and  California." 

Clean,  slender  ships  anchored  with  slip-cable  three 
miles  offshore,  gently  swaying  in  the  long  Pacific  swell, 
sails  stopped  with  rope-yarns  to  break  out  and  put  to 
sea  in  a  sou'easter.  No  sound  to  break  the  eternal  roar 
and  roll  of  surf  on  endless  beach,  save  tinny  bells  jan- 
gling out  vespers  from  a  white  mission  tower.  Sailors 
waist-high  in  boiling  foam,  'droghing'  hides  on  aching 
head  from  beach  to  longboat,  or  hurling  them  down 
cliff  at  San  Juan  Capistrano.  Sleepy  Santa  Barbara 
coming  to  life  at  the  wedding  of  Dona  Anita  de  la 
Guerra  de  Noriego  y  Corillo  to  plain  Alfred  Robinson, 
Bryant  &  Sturgis's  agent.  "Splendid,  idle  forties" 
for  the  Californians ;  not  so  idle  for  the  Yankee 
seamen  whose  labor  made  cent  per  cent  for  owners, 
and  fat  primage  for  officers.  Few  survived  to  get  into 
Bancroft's  register  of  California  pioneers.  Dana's 
book  is  their  only  monument  —  who  would  wish  a 
better? 


268 


SHIPS  AND  SEAMEN  IN  SOUTHERN  SEAS 

It  was  the  very  low  price  of  California  hides  that 
made  it  worth  while  to  send  vessels  for  two  years'  voy- 
ages around  the  Horn  in  search  of  them.  South  Amer- 
ica was  the  great  source  of  supply  for  Massachusetts 
tanpits  and  shoe  shops.  In  1843,  out  of  a  total  of 
311,000  hides  imported  at  Boston  alone  (and  Salem 
took  many  thousand  in  addition),  over  100,000  came 
from  Buenos  Aires  and  Montevideo,  over  46,000  from 
Chile,  48,000  from  New  Orleans,  and  only  33,000  from 
California. 

Many  years  before  1815,  during  the  first  struggles 
of  the  South  American  patriots,  Yankee  vessels  flocked 
to  their  ports;  and  Massachusetts  commission  houses 
preceded  American  consuls  in  several  South  American 
cities.1  Let  historians  seeking  economic  origins  of  the 
Monroe  Doctrine  look  to  the  Northwest  fur  trade  and 
to  this  early  intercourse  with  South  America! 

The  Lowell  power  looms  at  Waltham  were  making 
sheetings  for  the  South  America  trade  before  1824, 
and  by  1850  that  continent  was  taking  over  three- 
quarters  of  the  total  export  of '  domestics '  from  Boston. 
The  lumber  trade  to  the  River  Plate  increased,  and 
old  vessels  on  the  point  of  falling  to  pieces  were  filled 
with  Maine  pine  boards  and  sent  to  Buenos  Aires  to 
be  sold  for  firewood.  There  was  a  sale  for  almost  any- 
thing in  South  America,  provided  it  could  compete 
with  British  goods.  In  return,  there  was  an  excellent 
market  in  Boston,  and  all  North  American  cities,  for 
River  Plate  wool,  hair,  hides,  sheepskins,  and  tallow, 
until  the  protective  tariff  system  was  applied  to  favor 
cattle  ranches  in  the  United  States.  The  principal  im- 

1  One  of  them,  Richard  Alsop,  of  the  firm  of  Alsop,  Wetmore  &  Cry- 
der,  at  Valparaiso,  with  a  branch  at  Lima,  was  making  $100,000  a  year 
by  1827.  Others  were  Samuel  Pomeroy  at  Arica,  William  Wheelwright 
at  Guayaquil  and  other  ports,  the  Thayers  of  Lancaster  in  Chile, 
Joseph  W.  Clapp  at  Montevideo,  and  Loring  Brothers  at  Valparaiso. 

269 


porting  and  exporting  firm  at  Buenos  Aires  was  Samuel 
B.  Hale  &  Co.,  whose  founder,  of  a  Boston  mercantile 
family,  first  visited  the  River  Plate  in  1830  as  super- 
cargo on  a  Boston  ship.  The  firm  at  one  time  owned 
forty-six  sailing  vessels,  and  in  addition  Mr.  Hale  be- 
came a  director  of  the  first  railway  in  the  Argentine 
Republic. 

Along  the  Central  American  coast  small  brigs  and 
schooners  peddled  notions,  bringing  home  cochineal, 
goatskins,  and  tropical  woods.  Pirates  were  a  menace 
in  the  Caribbean  as  late  as  1840.  The  brig  Mexican 
of  Salem  was  plundered  of  her  specie  in  1832,  and 
only  an  opportune  gale  prevented  the  pirate  crew  from 
executing  their  captain's  order — "Dead  cats  don't 
mew."  Five  of  them  were  hanged  in  Boston  two  years 
later. 

Rio  de  Janeiro  was  a  favorite  port  of  call  for  Yankee 
traders.  "  I  shall  never  forget,"  wrote  Osborne  Howes, 
"the  beautiful  afternoon  that  we  sailed  into  that  mag- 
nificent harbor."  It  was  November  25,  1833,  and  he 
was  master  of  the  little  barque  Flora  of  Boston,  with 
flour  and  lumber  to  exchange  for  sugar. 

We  passed  the  fort  shortly  before  sunset,  were  hailed  and  directed 
to  proceed  to  the  anchoring  grounds  some  two  miles  distant,  and 
were  there  boarded  by  the  health  officer.  When  the  business  with 
him  was  finished  I  went  on  deck.  The  land  breeze  had  set  in,  bring- 
ing with  it  the  fragrance  of  the  orange-trees.  The  beautiful  little 
islands  rose  abruptly  from  the  water,  on  the  tops  of  many  of  them 
were  churches,  the  bells  of  which  were  ringing.  West  of  us  was  a  deep 
bay,  some  fifteen  or  twenty  miles  in  extent,  at  the  head  of  which 
were  the  Organ  Mountains,  with  their  peaks  from  five  thousand  to 
six  thousand  feet  in  height.  Near  us  rose  the  Sugar  Loaf,  one  thou- 
sand feet  or  more  above  the  sea,  and  not  far  distant,  the  beautiful 
Corcovado  Mountain.  Small  boats  were  passing  across  the  bay, 
urged  by  sail  or  oar,  and  the  negroes,  as  they  pulled  at  the  latter, 
were  singing  gayly.  The  lights  of  the  city,  some  two  miles  distant, 
gleamed  over  the  water,  and  these,  brought  out  by  the  high  moun- 

270 


SHIPS  AND  SEAMEN  IN  SOUTHERN  SEAS 

tainous  lands  a  little  behind  them,  rendered  the  outlook  most  en- 
chanting. The  moon  was  shining  brightly,  and  I  remained  on  the 
deck  till  midnight,  enjoying  the  beauty  of  the  scene. 

A  considerable  coffee  trade  was  built  up  with  Brazil; 
in  1843  Boston  imported  thence  over  four  million 
pounds,  one-quarter  of  her  total  imports  of  the  fra- 
grant bean;  and  a  million  and  a  quarter  more  from 
Puerto  Cabello.  A  million  more  came  from  Cuba,  and 
eight  and  one  half  millions  from  Hayti.  In  this,  as 
in  most  branches  of  South  American  trade,  Boston 
was  surpassed  by  other  Atlantic  ports  of  the  United 
States,  but  at  Valparaiso  the  enterprise  of  Augustus 
Hemenway  gave  Boston  the  bulk  of  North  Ameri- 
can commerce.  This  self-made  merchant  approached 
South  America  by  way  of  the  Maine  coast  and  the 
West  Indies.  He  owned  a  township  in  Washington 
County,  Maine,  where  pine  was  cut  on  his  own  land, 
sawed  into  lumber  at  his  own  sawmill  in  Machias, 
and  carried  to  Cuba  (where  he  owned  a  sugar  planta- 
tion) or  Valparaiso  on  his  own  ships,  which  returned 
from  the  west  coast  laden  with  copper  and  nitrate  of 
soda. 

Massachusetts  merchants  found  South  America  a 
good  market  for  India  shawls  and  China  silk,  which 
suggested  a  direct  trade  from  Canton  in  Boston  ves- 
sels. R.  B.  Forbes,  at  twenty-one  given  command  of 
his  uncle  Perkins's  brig  Nile,  disposed  of  a  Canton 
cargo  at  various  ports  from  Bodega  Bay  to  Buenos 
Aires,  where  John  M.  Forbes,  another  uncle,  was 
charge  d'affaires. 

As  a  feeder  to  New  England's  leading  industry,  as 
an  outlet  for  her  products,  and  as  a  carrying  trade, 
this  intercourse  with  South  America  became  one  of  the 
most  important  branches  of  Massachusetts  commerce ; 
and  it  is  one  of  the  few  branches  that  still  continues 

271 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

in  sailing  vessels.  It  was  very  similar  to,  and  largely 
replaced  the  West-India  trade  of  colonial  days;  with 
the  important  difference  that  it  fed  looms  and  shoe  fac- 
tories instead  of  slave  coffles  and  distilleries. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

CHINA  AND  THE  EAST  INDIES 
1820-1850 

RETURNING  around  the  Horn,  we  find  that  the  China 
trade  until  1840  was  carried  on  by  the  same  unique 
methods  and  the  same  shrewd  traders  as  before  the 
war.  Ships  of  all  nations  still  anchored  at  Whampoa, 
and  lightered  their  cargoes  up-river  to  Jackass  Point. 
Boston  merchants  of  the  old  Nor'wester  families 
maintained  luxurious  bachelor  quarters  in  the  Canton 
factories,  and  a  summer  residence  at  Macao.  The 
only  new  element  was  the  missionaries,  among  whom 
the  Reverend  Peter  Parker,  M.D.,  of  Framingham, 
Massachusetts,  deserves  a  passing  mention  for  his 
pioneer  work  in  founding  native  hospitals  at  Can- 
ton and  Macao.  There  was  little  variation  from  dec- 
ade to  decade  in  the  total  volume  of  the  American 
China  trade,  but  a  great  change  took  place,  even 
before  1840,  in  its  character,  and  its  relative  impor- 
tance for  Massachusetts  commerce. 

Among  the  "flowery-flag  devils,"  as  the  Chinese 
called  our  compatriots,  the  Perkins-Sturgis-Forbes 
connection  remained  all-powerful;  for  China  trading 
required  great  experience  in  details,  and  sound  finan- 
cial backing.  'Ku-shing1  (John  P.  Cushing),  their 
Canton  agent,  with  only  two  clerks  to  his  establish- 
ment, did  a  business  of  millions  a  year,  and  returned  a 
wealthy  man  in  1830  to  his  Summer  Street  mansion 
and  his  Belmont  estate,  attended  by  a  retinue  of 
Chinese  servants.  Perkins  &  Co.,  James  P.  Sturgis  & 
Co.,  Russell,  Sturgis  &  Co.,  and  Russell  &  Sturgis  of 

273 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

Manila  were  finally  consolidated  into  the  firm  of  Rus- 
sell &  Co.  of  Canton,  which  had  been  founded  by 
Samuel  Russell,  of  Middletown,  Connecticut,  about 
1818.  Joseph  Peabody,  of  Salem,  as  we  have  seen, 
maintained  a  foothold  at  Canton  until  1840.  Augus- 
tine Heard,  at  one  time  a  partner  of  Russell  &  Co., 
established  a  separate  house  which  remained  in  the 
hands  of  his  nephews  until  well  after  the  Civil  War. 
Small  firms  were  founded  from  time  to  time ;  but  these 
"needy  adventurers"  and  "desperadoes,"  as  Captain 
Bill  Sturgis  called  them,  did  not  last  long. 

Russell  &  Co.  did  more  business  at  Canton  than 
any  other  American  house.  No  small  measure  of  this 
success  was  due  to  the  friendship  of  Houqua,  the 
Chinese  hong  merchant;  a  legacy  of  John  P.  Cushing. 
Houqua,  as  generous  as  he  was  wealthy,  extended  un- 
limited credit  facilities  to  his  Boston  friends  during  the 
worst  financial  panics.  He  shipped  his  own  teas  to 
Europe  and  America  on  the  Russell  ships,  and  on  one 
occasion  sent  J.  Murray  Forbes  half  a  million  dollars  to 
invest  in  New  England  factory  stock.  In  England  the 
relations  of  the  Boston  China  merchants  with  Baring 
Brothers,  who  had  financed  their  early  ventures  to  the 
Northwest  Coast,  became  so  intimate  that  Joshua 
Bates  (who  married  a  Sturgis)  and  Russell  Sturgis  (a 
great-nephew  of  T.  H.  Perkins)  were  successively  ad- 
mitted partners  in  that  great  merchant-banking  house. 

After  1815  the  character  of  American  imports  from 
China  gradually  changed.  Canton  willow-ware,  after 
a  brief  recovery,  was  crowded  out  of  the  Boston  mar- 
ket by  Staffordshire,  Royal  Worcester,  and  French 
porcelain.  European  imitations  killed  the  nankeens. 
Crapes  and  silks  declined  with  changes  in  fashion,  and 
by  1840  teas  made  up  over  eighty  per  cent  of  American 
imports  from  China. 

274 


CHINA  AND  THE  EAST  INDIES 

The  greater  part  of  this,  even  when  shipped  by 
Boston  firms  in  Boston  vessels,  was  sent  into  New 
York.  Out  of  ninety-one  vessels  entering  New  York 
from  Canton  and  Manila  between  1839  and  1842, 
thirty-nine  belonged  in  Massachusetts;  and  the  en- 
tries from  China  at  Boston  and  Salem  averaged  but 
five  or  six  annually. 

A  one  per  cent  state  tax  on  auction  sales,  the  custom- 
ary method  for  disposing  of  China  products,  has  been 
blamed  for  this  exodus  to  Manhattan.  This  tax  resulted 
from  a  temporary  alliance  in  1824  between  retail  grocers 
and  the  farmer  vote.  The  former,  for  some  obscure 
reason,  wished  to  kill  the  auction  system.  The  latter 
were  looking  for  a  new  source  of  revenue  rather  than 
raise  the  state  property  tax  from  $75,000  to  $100,000. 

It  was  unwise  to  remove  Boston's  advantage  (for 
New  York  already  had  an  auction  tax)  at  a  period 
when  the  Erie  Canal  was  pulling  trade  to  Manhattan. 
But  it  is  doubtful  whether  the  tax  drove  any  one  from 
Boston.  Some  of  her  tea  ships  were  already  being  sent 
to  New  York  in  1824,  and  most  of  them  continued 
thither  when  the  tax  was  reduced  one-quarter  in  1849, 
and  abolished  in  1852.  East-Indian,  Russian,  and 
Mediterranean  imports  continued  to  be  sold  princi- 
pally in  Boston,  although  disposed  of  by  auction,  and 
subject  to  the  same  duty.  Both  Boston  and  Salem 
maintained  their  early  lead  in  the  Manila  trade,  which 
was  closely  connected  with  the  China  trade,  and  car- 
ried on  by  the  same  firms.  Four  and  a  quarter  million 
pounds  of  Philippine  Islands  sugar,  and  great  quan- 
tities of  Manila  hemp  and  indigo,  were  landed  at  Bos- 
ton in  1843.  Similar  commodities  were  imported  from 
Batavia,  where  a  Bostonian  was  the  principal  Ameri- 
can merchant  in  1850,  and  near  which  Boston  interests 
acquired  a  large  sugar  plantation.  Massachusetts  also 

275 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

retained  a  considerable  though  irregular  share  of  the 
Java  coffee  trade.  For  obvious  geographical  reasons 
New  York,  after  the  opening  of  the  Erie  Canal,  was  a 
better  market  for  teas  than  Boston,  so  that  when  one 
China  merchant  began  sending  his  ships  there,  the  rest 
followed  in  self-defense.  The  same  movement  took 
place,  twenty  years  later,  in  the  wholesale  cottons 
trade.  Other  shipping  merchants  and  wholesalers  who 
did  not  enjoy  the  social  preeminence  of  the  China  mer- 
chants might  have  followed  their  example;  after  the 
Civil  War  most  of  them  did.  Until  then  they  remained 
loyal  to  Boston.  The  fate  of  Salem  warned  Bostonians 
to  retain  control  of  distribution,  as  the  condition  of  a 
healthy  commercial  life. 

On  the  whole  the  China  trade  grew  less  important 
for  Massachusetts  year  by  year.  It  enriched  but  two 
or  three  family  connections,  and  between  1820  and 
1845  was  not  very  lucrative  even  for  them.  Yet  it 
produced  a  new  type  of  vessel,  the  Medford-built 
East-Indiaman,1  and  provided  an  important  outlet 
for  New  England  manufactures.  Our  teas  were  no 
longer  purchased  with  otter-skins  and  sandal  wood. 
About  1817,  the  Boston  merchants  began  to  ship 
English  goods  to  Canton,  in  competition  with  the 
British  East  India  Company.  Their  success  greatly 
irritated  British  merchants,  excluded  by  the  Honorable 
John's  monopoly,  and  provided  an  additional  incen- 
tive for  Parliament  throwing  open  the  trade  to  all 
British  subjects,  in  1834.  Already  the  Bostonians  had 
begun  to  substitute  Lowell  cottons  for  the  Lancashire ; 
and  ten  years  later  the  prosaic  fruit  of  New  England 
looms,  to  the  annual  value  of  a  million  and  a  half 
dollars,  had  replaced  the  lustrous  and  fragrant  prod- 
ucts of  Coast  and  Islands. 

1  See  previous  chapter. 
276 


SHIP  SARACEN  BEING  TOWED  INTO  TABLE  BAY 


SHIP  CARNATIC  IN  A  HURRICANE 
TWO  BOSTON  EAST-INDIAMEN  OF  1840 


CHINA  AND  THE  EAST  INDIES 

In  spite  of  these  new  exports  to  China  there  still 
remained  a  heavy  annual  balance  against  Boston. 
The  growing  Chinese  consumption  of  Indian  opium 
created  a  demand  at  Canton  for  bills  on  London, 
which  our  China  merchants  began  to  supply,  in  place 
of  Spanish  dollars,  about  1827.  To  a  certain  extent 
they  supplied  the  forbidden  drug  itself,  and  made  no 
secret  of  it.  Since  the  opening  years  of  the  century, 
Perkins  &  Co.  had  made  a  specialty  of  carrying  Smyrna 
opium  to  Canton;  so  did  Joseph  Peabody  and  every 
Boston  or  Salem  merchant  who  could  get  it.  But  the 
total  import  of  this  inferior  variety  was  inconsiderable, 
in  comparison  with  the  immense  consignments  of 
opium  from  British  India  —  five  hundred  and  seventy- 
eight  thousand  dollars'  worth  in  the  season  of  1833-34, 
as  compared  with  fourteen  million  dollars'  worth  of 
seductive  Malwa  and  fragrant  Patna,  smuggled  in  by 
British  ships.1 

A  small  part,  also,  of  the  imports  under  the  British 
flag  were  on  the  account  of  Russell  &  Co.  and  Augus- 
tine Heard.  Within  a  few  years'  time,  a  fleet  of  Boston 
clipper  schooners  and  brigs  (like  the  92-ton  Ariel, 
which  almost  drowned  R.  B.  Forbes  on  her  trial  trip, 
the  loo-ton  Zephyr  and  the  370- ton  Antelope,  built  by 
Samuel  Hall)  was  distributing  opium  along  the  China 
coast  from  Lintin  Island,  where  the  American  firms 
maintained  receiving  ships.  One  small  house  at  Can- 
ton was  founded  by  a  Salem  mate  and  ship's  carpenter 
who,  taking  advantage  of  Chinese  respect  for  the  dead, 
landed  a  large  consignment  of  the  forbidden  drug  in 
coffins  supposed  to  contain  departed  shipmates!  Oly- 
phant  &  Co.  of  New  York  (derisively  called  'Zion's 

1  The  American  ships  at  Canton  this  season  numbered  70,  as  against 
24  British  East-Indianmen,  77  Country  ships  (vessels  owned  in  British 
India),  37  Spaniards,  and  45  of  all  other  nations. 

277 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

Corner'  by  their  rivals)  was  the  only  Canton  house 
that  refused  to  participate  in  the  opium  trade;  and 
their  motive  was  not  so  much  moral  as  practical. 
They  feared  that  a  traffic  forbidden  by  the  Chinese 
government,  however  countenanced  by  its  officials, 
would  breed  trouble.  They  were  right. 

Having  stated  these  facts,  I  must,  in  justice  to  the 
candid  old  China  merchants  and  their  descendants 
who  made  them  public,  warn  the  reader  against  exag- 
gerating this  opium  traffic.  For  English  firms,  it  was 
vital.  For  Boston  firms,  it  was  incidental,  even  in  the 
China  trade;1  which  trade  was  but  a  small  and  declin- 
ing item  in  the  commerce  of  Boston  and  Salem  after 
1815.  Few,  at  the  time,  appreciated  the  moral  and 
physical  injury  to  the  Chinese  people  they  were  com- 
mitting through  this  traffic.  Even  Christian  mission- 
aries countenanced  it,  by  taking  passage  on  the  opium 
clippers  to  ports  they  could  not  otherwise  reach,  and 
by  accepting  money  from  firms  and  individuals  who 
dealt  in  the  drug.  It  was  commonly  asserted  that 
opium  had  no  more  effect  on  the  Chinese  than  rum  on 
Yankees.  At  the  risk  of  appearing  to  black  the  kettle, 
I  further  submit  that  there  is  a  difference  between 
smuggling  opium  under  the  official  wink  and  driving 
in  opium  with  cannon  and  bayonet  when  officials  are 
making  a  sincere  if  tardy  effort  at  moral  reform. 

In  England's  opium  war  of  1840,  Americans  had  no 
share;  and  few  justified  it  save  John  Quincy  Adams.2 

1  Opium  made  up  over  half  of  the  British  imports  into  China  in 
1831-32.  Only  one-fifteenth  to  one-twenty-fifth  of  the  American  im- 
ports at  the  same  period  were  in  Smyrna  opium,  and  the  amount  of 
Indian  opium  imported  in  American  vessels  before  1850  must  have 
been  very  small,  so  few  were  engaged  in  it.  British  opium  imports  ex- 
ceeded greatly  the  total  American  trade. 

8  In  a  public  lecture  at  Boston,  that  aroused  a  storm  of  protest; 
printed  in  Chinese  Repository,  xi,  274. 

278 


CHINA  AND  THE  EAST  INDIES 

Many  profited  by  it,  nevertheless;  both  by  absorbing 
the  British  trade  during  its  course  and  sharing  the 
fruits  of  its  success.  After  England  had  extorted  the 
Treaty  of  Nanking,  which  ended  forever  the  old  Can- 
ton methods  and  opened  four  new  ports  to  European 
commerce,  the  United  States  government  sent  out 
Caleb  Cushing,  of  Newburyport,  as  envoy  extraor- 
dinary. In  the  treaty  which  he  concluded  on  July  3, 
1844,  the  United  States  disavowed  all  protection  of 
opium  smugglers. 

The  principal  profits  thereafter  made  by  Boston 
capital  in  China  were  in  tea,  in  steam  freighting  along 
the  Yangtze  River,  and  in  clipper-ship  freighting  from 
the  Treaty  Ports  to  New  York  and  London.  A  cer- 
tain amount  of  opium  smuggling  continued.  As  late  as 
1872  fast  steamers,  some  of  Boston  registry,  were  run- 
ning it  into  Formosa,  a  thousand  chests  a  trip ;  carrier 
pigeons  conveying  prices-current  to  interior  corre- 
spondents. Russell  &  Co.  removed  to  Shanghai,  and 
finally  went  bankrupt  in  the  nineties,  by  which  time 
the  Germans  had  crowded  out  the  smaller  Boston 
firms. 

To-day  no  trace  remains  in  Boston  of  the  old  China 
trade,  the  foundation  of  her  commercial  renaissance, 
save  a  taste  for  li-chi  nuts,  Malacca  joints,  and  smoky 
Souchong. 


Do  you  remember,  in  the  "Second  Jungle  Book," 
the  adjutant  bird's  description  of  his  frigid  and 
wounded  feelings,  after  swallowing  a  "piece  of  white 
stuff,"  which  a  man  threw  him  from  a  great  boat  in 
the  Ganges?  And  Mr.  Kipling's  explanation  that  the 
Adjutant  had  swallowed  "a  seven-pound  lump  of 

279 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

Wenham  Lake  ice,  off  an  American  ice-ship"?  Now, 
it  cost  one  visionary  Yankee  some  twenty-eight  years' 
struggle  to  deliver  that  frozen  sample  of  Wenham 
Lake,  Massachusetts,  to  the  Adjutant's  crop. 

When  twenty-two-year-old  Frederic  Tudor  pro- 
posed to  ship  ice  to  the  West  Indies  from  his  father's 
pond  in  Saugus,  Boston  thought  him  mad;  and  sea- 
faring men,  fearing  such  a  cargo  would  melt  and  swamp 
a  vessel,  with  some  difficulty  were  persuaded  to  handle 
his  brig.  His  first  venture  was  one  hundred  and  thirty 
tons  of  ice  to  Martinique  in  1805.  On  receiving  news 
of  its  complete  failure,  he  wrote  in  his  journal,  "He 
who  gives  back  at  the  first  repulse  and  without  striking 
the  second  blow  despairs  of  success,  has  never  been,  is 
not  and  never  will  be  a  hero  in  love,  war,  or  business." 
By  1812  he  had  built  up  a  small  trade  with  the  West 
Indies.  The  war  wiped  him  out.  After  the  Peace  of 
Ghent  he  obtained  government  permission  to  build 
ice-houses  at  Kingston  and  Havana,  with  a  monopoly 
of  the  traffic.  It  began  to  pay,  and  between  1817  and 
1820  he  extended  the  business  to  Charleston,  Savannah, 
and  New  Orleans. 

Frederic  Tudor's  letter-books  (preserved  in  an  old 
Boston  office,  under  ship  pictures  and  photographs  of 
Tudor  ice-houses  in  the  Far  East)  reveal  something 
of  the  pains,  ingenuity,  and  persistence  required  to 
build  up  the  ice-exporting  business.  Vessels  had  to  be 
double-sheathed,  to  protect  the  ice  from  melting,  and 
the  captains  had  to  be  cautioned,  with  wearisome 
repetition,  never  to  let  the  hatches  be  removed.  Tudor 
experimented  with  all  sorts  of  filling;  with  rice  and 
wheat  chaff,  hay,  tan-bark,  and  even  coal-dust,  before 
he  settled  upon  pine  sawdust  as  the  best  insulator.  In- 
stead of  filling  a  long-felt  want,  he  had  to  create  a 
market  at  every  new  port;  and  to  make  the  market 

280 


CHINA  AND  THE  EAST  INDIES 

pay,  he  had  to  educate  not  only  the  well-to-do,  but 
the  working  people.  He  instructed  Osgood  Carney, 
supercargo  of  the  barque  Madagascar  which  took  his 
first  shipment  to  Rio  de  Janeiro,  "  If  you  can  make  a 
commencement  for  introducing  the  habit  of  cold 
drinks  at  the  same  price  as  warm  at  the  ordinary  drink- 
ing places  .  . .  even  if  you  give  the  ice  ...  you  will  do 
well. . .  .  The  shop  frequented  by  the  lowest  people  is 
the  one  to  be  chosen  for  this  purpose."  In  addition, 
Mr.  Carney  must  promote  an  ice-cream  establishment, 
instruct  people  in  the  art  of  preserving  ice  at  their 
homes,  construct  a  temporary  ice-house  on  shore,  in- 
troduce it  into  the  hospitals,  and  persuade  the  Brazil- 
ian government,  on  the  ground  of  public  health,  to 
remit  export  duties  on  all  products  taken  away  by  the 
Tudor  vessels. 

Nor  did  his  pioneer  work  end  with  creating  a  market. 
No  one  in  Southern  ports  knew  how  to  store  ice  during 
hot  weather.  Mr.  Tudor  had  to  provide  the  materials 
for  ice-houses,  employees  to  construct  them,  and 
agents  to  take  charge  of  distribution.  Their  careless- 
ness and  dishonesty  was  a  constant  trial.  He  became 
an  expert  in  what  nowadays  is  called  the  science  of 
salesmanship.  Playing  on  local  excitement  and  curios- 
ity, a  high  price  was  charged  on  first  shipments.  Grad- 
ually the  price  was  lowered ;  and  in  order  to  stimulate 
steady  sales,  tickets  were  sold  at  a  reduced  rate,  en- 
titling the  bearer  to  so  many  pounds  on  presentation 
at  the  ice-house.1 

1  At  Charleston,  South  Carolina,  in  1834,  Tudor  sold  ice  for  I J  cents 
per  pound,  but  ice  tickets  were  sold  at  the  rate  of  ij  cents.  Previously 
he  had  cut  the  rate  to  three-fourths  of  a  cent  in  order  literally  to  freeze 
out  the  Thayers  of  Boston,  who  endeavored  to  compete  with  him.  At 
New  Orleans,  to  which  he  paid  from  $435  to  $600  for  freight  per  small 
brig-load  of  ice,  he  was  selling  it  for  2  cents;  at  Havana  for  3  cents.  The 
first  price  at  Rio  de  Janeiro  in  1833  was  12  pounds  for  a  Spanish  dollar. 

281 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

In  May,  1833,  Tudor  made  his  first  venture  to  Cal- 
cutta; one  hundred  and  eighty  tons  of  ice  in  the  ship 
Tuscany.  "As  soon  as  you  have  arrived  in  latitude 
12°  north,"  he  instructed  Captain  Littlefield,  "you 
will  have  carried  ice  as  far  south  as  it  has  ever  been 
carried  before,  and  your  Ship  becomes  a  discovery 
ship  and  as  such  I  feel  confident  you  will  do  every- 
thing for  the  eventual  success  of  the  undertaking;  as 
being  in  charge  of  the  first  ship  that  has  ever  carried 
ice  to  the  East  Indies." 

After  sailing  twice  through  the  torrid  zone,  the 
Tuscany  landed  almost  two-thirds  of  her  chilly  cargo 
in  good  order  at  Calcutta.  Many  are  the  yarns  told 
of  its  reception.  A  Parsee  asked  the  Captain,  "How 
this  ice  make  grow  in  your  country?  Him  grow  on 
tree?  Him  grow  on  shrub?"  Indignant  natives  de- 
manded their  money  back,  after  leaving  a  purchase  in 
the  sun.  The  poverty  of  the  people  made  it  difficult 
to  establish  a  wide  market;  but  the  Anglo-Indian  com- 
munity quickly  took  to  iced  drinks,  and  paid  large 
sums  for  the  Baldwin  apples,  which  were  buried  in 
the  chilly  cargoes.  The  trade  was  as  genial  for  ship- 
masters as  it  was  profitable  for  Mr.  Tudor.  While 
supercargoes  dickered  for  return  freight  with  the  Babu 
Rajkissen  Mitter,  or  Jamsetjee  Jeejeebhoy  &  Co., 
the  Boston  captains  moored  their  vessels  to  the  banks 
of  the  Hoogly,  and  played  host  with  drinks  mixed 
Yankee-fashion,  to  all  ships'  officers  in  the  port  of 
Calcutta. 

Mr.  Tudor  and  his  ice  came  just  in  time  to  preserve 
Boston's  East-India  commerce  from  ruin.  Our  carry- 
ing trade  between  Calcutta  and  Europe  had  declined 
almost  to  extinction.  A  precarious  foothold  in  Bengal 
was  retained  by  Boston  and  Salem  houses  only  by  im- 
porting specie,  eked  out  with  'notions'  such  as  spiced 

282 


CHINA  AND  THE  EAST  INDIES 

Penobscot  salmon,  cods'  tongues  and  sounds,  coarse 
glassware,  sperm  candles  and  Cape  Cod  Glauber 
salts.1  Our  importing  business  from  Calcutta  had 
been  "cut  up  by  the  roots"  by  the  tariff  of  1816,  as 
Daniel  Webster  said ;  and  within  a  few  years  the  Massa- 
chusetts mills  were  making  cotton  cloth  in  sufficient 
variety  to  kill  all  demand  for  Allabad  Emerties,  Beer- 
boom  Gurrahs,  and  the  like,  so  extensively  imported  in 
Federalist  days.  But  the  ice  business  increased  to  such 
an  extent  that  by  1841,  although  pushed  by  fifteen  com- 
petitors, and  forced  to  lower  the  retail  price  to  one  cent 
a  pound,  Frederic  Tudor  was  able  to  pay  off  a  debt  of  a 
quarter-million  contracted  by  his  early  experiments. 

Between  1836  and  1850  the  Boston  ice  trade  was 
extended  to  every  large  port  in  South  America  and 
the  Far  East.  When,  at  the  Court  of  St.  James,  Ed- 
ward Everett  met  the  Persian  ambassador,  his  first 
words  were  an  appreciation  of  the  benefits  of  American 
ice  in  Persia.  For  a  generation  after  the  Civil  War, 
until  cheap  artificial  ice  was  invented,  this  export 
trade  increased  and  prospered.  Not  Boston  alone,  but 
every  New  England  village  with  a  pond  near  tidewater, 
was  able  to  turn  this  Yankee  liability  into  an  asset, 
through  the  genius  of  Frederic  Tudor. 

The  center  of  the  business  was  Gray's  (later  Tudor's) 
Wharf,  Charlestown.  There  the  ice  was  brought  by 
pung  or  train,  as  it  was  needed,  from  the  ice-houses  at 
Fresh  Pond  and  other  lakes  in  the  neighborhood.  In 
the  winter  of  1846  "a  hundred  Irishmen,  with  Yankee 
overseers,  came  from  Cambridge  every  day  to  get  out 
the  ice"  from  Walden,  where  Thoreau  was  dividing 
his  time  between  the  study  of  nature  and  the  Indian 
philosophers. 

1  The  cargo  of  the  Emerald,  Captain  Augustine  Heard,  in  1826.  See 
also  that  of  William  H.  Bordman's  Arbella,  next  chapter. 

283 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

"Thus  it  appears,"  he  writes,1  "that  the  sweltering  inhabitants  of 
Charleston  and  New  Orleans,  of  Madras  and  Bombay  and  Calcutta, 
drink  at  my  well.  In  the  morning  I  bathe  my  intellect  in  the  stupen- 
dous and  cosmogonal  philosophy  of  the  Bhagvat-Geeta ...  I  lay 
down  the  book  and  go  to  my  well  for  water,  and  lo !  there  I  meet  the 
servant  of  the  Brahmin,  priest  of  Brahma  and  Vishnu  and  Indra, 
who  still  sits  in  his  temple  on  the  Ganges  reading  the  Vedas,  or  dwells 
at  the  root  of  a  tree  with  his  crust  and  water  jug.  I  meet  his  servant 
come  to  draw  water  for  his  master,  and  our  buckets  as  it  were  grate 
together  in  the  same  well.  The  pure  Walden  water  is  mingled  with 
the  sacred  water  of  the  Ganges.  With  the  favoring  winds  it  is  wafted 
past  the  site  of  the  fabulous  islands  of  Atlantis  and  the  Hesperides, 
makes  the  periplus  of  Hanno,  and  floating  by  Ternate  and  Tidore 
and  the  mouth  of  the  Persian  Gulf,  melts  in  the  tropic  gales  of  the 
Indian  seas,  and  is  landed  in  ports  of  which  Alexander  only  heard 
the  names." 

As  might  be  expected,  the  Boston  merchants  found 
new  East- India  products  with  which  to  replace  cot- 
tons, and  turn  over  the  profits  they  made  on  outward 
cargoes.  "East-India  goods,"  between  1830  and  the 
Civil  War,  meant  buffalo  hides  and  jute;  indigo  and 
other  dyestuffs;  linseed  and  shellac;  saltpeter;  gunny- 
bags  which  Boston  supplied  to  the  corn-growers  of  the 
West,  and  gunny-cloth  which  was  sent  South  for  bal- 
ing cotton.  Colonel  Francis  Peabody,  son  of  Joseph, 
established  a  linseed  oil  and  jute  factory  near  Salem 
about  1841,  and  began  exporting  its  by-product  of 
oil-cake  to  England.  Adjoining  Tudor's  Wharf  at 
Charlestown  was  his  linseed  oil  and  cake  manufactory, 
and  a  shop  where  rice  and  gunny-cloth  were  prepared 
for  the  American  market.  In  1857  ninety-six  out  of  the 
hundred  and  twelve  vessels  that  loaded  at  Calcutta 
for  the  United  States,  landed  their  cargoes  at  Boston, 
earning  an  average  freight  of  twenty  thousand  dollars. 

The  homeward  voyage  from  Calcutta  was  not  so 
pleasant  as  the  cool  outward  passage.   Various  forms 
1  Walden,  end  of  chapter  xvi. 
284 


CHINA  AND  THE  EAST  INDIES 

of  insect  life  came  aboard  with  the  jute  and  gunnies, 
and  propagated  with  surprising  rapidity.  Whoever 
left  his  boots  outside  his  bunk  (it  is  said)  found  nothing 
in  the  morning  but  the  nails  and  the  eyelets.  An  arri- 
val from  Calcutta  in  Boston  (I  have  been  told)  was 
sometimes  announced  by  a  pack  of  terrified  dogs 
running  up  State  Street  pursued  by  an  army  of  Cal- 
cutta cockroaches! 

In  spite  of  these  unpleasant  if  true  incidents,  the 
East-India  trade  (including,  in  the  popular  meaning 
of  the  word,  the  China,  Manila,  and  Java  trades  as 
well  as  that  of  British  India)  enjoyed  a  greater  prestige 
than  any  branch  of  Boston  commerce  since  the  North- 
west fur  trade  died.  An  "East-India  merchant,"  in 
ante-bellum  Boston,  possessed  social  kudos  to  which 
no  cotton  millionaire  could  pretend,  unless  previously 
initiated  through  Federalist  commerce.  To  have  an 
office  on  India  Wharf,  Boston,  or  to  live  in  the  India 
Row  that  comprised  the  fine  old  square-built  houses 
of  many  a  seaport  town,  conferred  distinction.  Among 
sailors,  the  man  who  had  made  an  East-India  voyage 
took  no  back- wind  from  any  one;  and  on  Cape  Cod  it 
used  to  be  said  of  a  pretty,  well-bred  girl,  "She  's  good 
enough  to  marry  an  East-India  Cap'n!" 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

MEDITERRANEAN  AND  BALTIC 
1820-1850 

WHILE  Frederic  Tudor  was  building  a  bridge  of  ice 
between  Concord  anarchy  and  Indian  philosophy,  the 
Mediterranean  trade  of  Boston  ferried  Ralph  Waldo 
Emerson  to  Malta,  on  his  way  to  Florence  and  Ferney, 
Savage  Landor  and  Carlyle.  Let  Emerson's  own  jour- 
nal begin  the  story: 

At  Sea,  January  2,  1833. 

Sailed  from  Boston  for  Malta,  December  25,  1832.  in  Brig  Jasper, 
Captain  Ellis,  236  tons,  laden  with  logwood,  mahogany,  tobacco, 
sugar,  coffee,  beeswax,  cheese,  etc.  A  long  storm  from  the  second 
morn  of  our  departure  consigned  all  the  five  passengers  to  the  irre- 
medial  chagrins  of  the  stateroom,  to  wit,  nausea,  darkness,  unrest, 
uncleanness,  harpy  appetite  and  harpy  feeding,  the  ugly  "sound  of 
water  in  mine  ears,"  anticipations  of  going  to  the  bottom,  and  the 
treasures  of  the  memory.  I  remembered  up  nearly  the  whole  of  Lyci- 
das,  clause  by  clause,  here  a  verse  and  there  a  word,  as  Isis  in  the 
fable  the  broken  body  of  Osiris. 

Out  occasionally  crawled  we  from  our  several  holes,  but  hope  and 
fair  weather  would  not;  so  there  was  nothing  for  it  but  to  wriggle 
again  into  the  crooks  of  the  transom.  Then  it  seemed  strange  that  the 
first  man  who  came  to  sea  did  not  turn  round  and  go  straight  back 
again.  Strange  that  because  one  of  my  neighbours  had  some  trum- 
pery logs  and  notions  which  would  sell  for  a  few  cents  more  here  than 
there,  he  should  thrust  forth  this  company  of  his  poor  countrymen 
to  the  tender  mercies  of  the  northwest  wind. . . . 

The  Captain  believes  in  the  superiority  of  the  American  to  every 
other  countryman.  "  You  will  see,"  he  says,  "when  you  get  out  here 
how  they  manage  in  Europe;  they  do  everything  by  main  strength 
and  ignorance.  Four  truckmen  and  four  stevedores  at  Long  Wharf 
will  load  my  brig  quicker  than  a  hundred  men  at  any  port  in  the 
Mediterranean."  It  seems  the  Sicilians  have  tried  once  or  twice  to 
bring  their  fruit  to  America  in  their  own  bottoms,  and  made  the 
passage,  he  says,  in  one  hundred  and  twenty  days. 

286 


MEDITERRANEAN  AND  BALTIC 

One  hopes  that  the  last  item  is  nearer  the  truth  than 
the  wild  yarns  of  the  Emerald's  record  passage  with 
which  his  homecoming  captain  stuffed  Emerson.  At 
Malta  he  left  the  brig  Jasper,  and  she  disappears  into 
the  fleet  of  undistinguished  brigs  and  topsail  schoon- 
ers that  traded  from  Boston  to  that  part  of  the  world. 

Add  lumber,  'domestics,'  and  East- India  goods  to 
the  Jasper's  cargo,  and  you  have  a  typical  outward 
lading  from  Boston  to  the  Mediterranean  for  the  pe- 
riod 1820-1850.  The  South  European  and  Levantine 
peoples  had  by  this  time  lost  their  taste  for  New 
England  salt  fish,  but  in  compensation  they  had 
learned  the  good  wearing  qualities  of  Lowell  cottons, 
and  acquired  a  profitable  thirst  for  New  England  rum. 
One  Mediterranean  firm  ran  a  distillery  in  its  Central 
Wharf  store,  importing  the  molasses  and  exporting  the 
rum  in  its  own  vessels.  But  most  outward  cargoes  had 
to  be  completed  outside  Massachusetts  —  in  Maine 
and  Chesapeake  Bay,  in  the  West  Indies,  South 
America,  and  the  East  Indies.  Honduras  logwood  was 
in  demand,  to  give  that  warm,  rich  color  to  Medi- 
terranean wines.  The  ports  of  destination  included 
Gibraltar,  Malaga,  Marseilles,  Genoa,  Leghorn,  Sar- 
dinia, Gallipolis,  Messina,  Marsala,  Palermo,  Trieste, 
Zante,  Volo,  and  Salonica.  Return  cargoes  comprised 
oranges  and  lemons,  wine  and  currants,  nuts  and 
raisins,  corkwood,  wool,  olive  oil,  and  a  score  of  minor 
products.  "  I  find  that  a  large  proportion  of  our  trade 
with  Genoa,"  wrote  the  American  consul  there  in 
1 843, "has  been  carried  on  by  Boston  and  Salem  mer- 
chants. Some  years,  more  than  half  the  vessels  en- 
tering this  port  have  been  owned  by  Robert  Gould 
Shaw  of  Boston." 

The  letter-book  of  William  H.  Bordman,  Jr.,  a 
young  Boston  merchant  who  had  been  to  sea,  shows 

287 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

in  some  detail  the  indirect  methods  by  which  the  Med- 
iterranean trade  was  generally  carried  on,  the  way  it 
fitted  into  other  trade  routes,  and  the  unspecialized 
methods  by  which  shipowners  won  wealth. 

In  1824  Bordman  ships  domestic  brown  shirtings, 
Canton  goods,  soap,  ham,  and  pickled  Penobscot 
salmon,  to  the  value  of  $1684,  in  one  of  his  own  ves- 
sels to  South  America.  The  supercargo  is  instructed 
to  use  his  own  judgment  as  to  the  port  of  sale,  but  is 
warned  that  Montevideo  is  overstocked  with  shirtings, 
and  that  the  ship  Romeo  has  just  cleared  for  Buenos 
Aires  with  a  similar  cargo.  The  salmon  will  keep  only 
twelve  months,  and  must  be  sold  before  it  spoils. 
Returns  are  left  to  the  supercargo's  judgment;  but 
horsehair  is  suggested,  and  something  must  be  shipped 
home  "in  time  for  me  to  take  up  my  notes  for  the 
shirtings."  The  same  year  Bordman  consigns  codfish, 
cheese,  and  lard  to  Havana,  in  exchange  for  cigars  of 
the  "Dos  Amygos  or  Cabanas  brands,  preferably  of  a 
light  yellow  color."  Pipe,  hogshead  and  barrel  staves 
are  then  obtained  at  Norfolk,  Virginia,  where  the  coop- 
erage inspection  is  more  strict  than  in  New  England, 
for  sale  at  Gibraltar  and  Cadiz.  On  vessels  other  than 
his  own,  he  adventures  429  pairs  of  shoes,  invoiced  at 
$347.05,  to  New  Orleans,  where  they  sell  for  $850,  less 
freight  and  expenses;  and  to  Liverpool  a  consignment 
of  sassafras  —  Gosnold's  export  from  Cuttyhunk  in 
1602. 

In  1826  Bordman  sends  his  ship  Arbella  to  Calcutta, 
laden  with  cigars  and  paint,  currant  jelly  and  shaving 
soap,  cider,  oakum  and  ham,  Dutch,  pineapple,  and 
native  cheese  —  the  latter  at  three  and  a  half  cents  a 
pound.  The  same  year,  when  spices  were  scarce,  one 
of  his  father's  vessels  enters  from  Sumatra  with  a 
cargo  of  pepper  and  Bourbon  cloves,  giving  the  Bord- 

288 


MEDITERRANEAN  AND  BALTIC 

man  family  a  corner.  Part  was  shipped  to  Messrs. 
Perkins  &  Saltonstall  at  Baltimore,  and  the  proceeds 
invested  in  ''superfine  Howard  St.  flour"  at  $4.12!. 
Part  of  this,  together  with  more  pepper  and  cloves,  is 
sent  to  Hayti  and  Havana,  and  the  proceeds  invested 
in  sugar.  Three  years  later  Bordman's  vessels  are 
taking  sugar  from  Havana  to  Gothenburg  for  Swedish 
iron;  and  in  1830  he  is  sending  pepper  to  the  Mediter- 
ranean. His  supercargo  will  decide  the  destination, 
when  advised  at  Gibraltar  on  the  state  of  the  pepper 
market  at  Antwerp,  Leghorn,  Genoa,  and  Trieste ;  and 
may  invest  in  a  return  cargo,  or  remit  balance  to 
London. 

By  1830  Bordman  has  added  a  new  arrow  to  his 
quiver  —  the  Northwest  Coast  and  Canton  trade. 
The  supercargo  of  his  brig  Smyrna  is  ordered  to  sell 
Northwest  sea-otter  at  Canton,  but  to  bring  his  ac- 
quisitions of  beaver  to  Boston,  where  it  is  selling  for 
eight  dollars  a  pelt.  Luckily  the  letter  is  not  received, 
for  by  the  time  the  Smyrna  returns,  enterprising 
Yankee  hatters  have  popularized  the  silk  hat,  and 
beaver  has  fallen  to  four  dollars.  In  search  of  the  illicit 
medium  for  China  trading,  Bordman  in  1832  sends  a 
cargo  of  sugar  from  Havana  to  Smyrna  for  opium. 
"If  on  arrival  the  sugars  will  pay  a  profit,  dispose  of 
them  at  once,  as  I  make  it  a  rule  never  to  speculate 
on  certain  gain."  At  this  point  the  letter-book  ends. 
From  the  manuscripts  of  Captain  John  Suter,  who 
took  a  share  in  Bordman's  vessels  and  ventures,  we 
find  that  he  was  one  of  the  last  to  enter  and  the  last 
to  leave  the  old  Northwest  fur  trade.  In  1833  he  sent 
the  ship  Rasselas  to  Valparaiso  and  the  Sandwich 
Islands,  and  the  same  year  the  brig  Smyrna  to  Suma- 
tra for  pepper.  Cost  of  vessel,  cargo,  and  outfit  was 

5,218.09.  Expenses  of  the  fourteen  months'  voyage 

289 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

were  $5050.82,  including  $854  wages  to  the  Captain, 
and  $1404.76  to  the  crew.  Net  sales  amounted  to 
almost  one  hundred  per  cent  on  the  investment. 

Massachusetts  commerce,  lacking  a  local  export 
medium,  was  largely  triangular,  if  not  four-  and  five- 
cornered.  For  this  reason,  perhaps,  we  find  that  even 
those  merchants  who  attempted  to  specialize  in  a  sin- 
gle line  participated  in  many  others  as  well  in  order 
to  assemble  their  outward  cargoes  and  dispose  of  their 
acquisitions.  On  these  secondary  routes  they  some- 
times employed  their  own  vessels,  but  perhaps  more 
often  retained  a  share  in  a  large  number  of  vessels,  in 
order  to  have  some  control  over  their  movements  and 
their  cargo  space.  Specialization  shows  a  marked  in- 
crease about  1830,  and  by  1850  there  was  hardly  a 
Boston  merchant  who  did  not  confine  his  activities  to 
one  or  two  regions  that  fitted  well  together,  such  as 
China  and  East  Indies,  the  Mediterranean  and  Smyrna, 
the  South  Sea  Islands  and  South  America,  the  Baltic 
and  West  Indies,  or  New  Orleans,  Havre,  and  Liver- 
pool. 

As  yet  there  was  no  tendency  to  separate  the  ship- 
owning,  purchasing,  and  distributing  functions;  and 
there  were  merchants  who  had  even  more  irons  in  the 
fire  than  William  Bordman.  Ezra  Weston  built  ves- 
sels in  his  own  yard,  opposite  his  paternal  mansion  on 
Powder  Point,  Duxbury,  out  of  timber  brought  from 
Maine  and  the  Merrimac  in  his  schooners,  or  from 
Bridgewater  and  Middleborough  on  his  own  ox-teams. 
He  rigged  them  with  the  products  of  his  own  ropewalk, 
sparyard,  blacksmith  shop,  and  sail  loft  at  Duxbury; 
loaded  them  opposite  his  counting-room  on  Com- 
mercial Wharf,  Boston;  and  sent  them  under  his 
house  flag  to  the  Mediterranean,  and  all  parts  of  the 
world. 

290 


MEDITERRANEAN  AND  BALTIC 

As  a  distributing  point  for  Mediterranean  fruit  and 
wine,  Boston  maintained  its  lead  over  New  York  until 
about  1850.  As  emporium  for  the  varied  products  of 
the  Near  East,  which  found  vent  through  Smyrna,  it 
never  had  a  serious  rival.  The  same  strange  yearning 
for  the  Orient  which  pulled  Boston  ships  around  the 
Horn  to  Canton,  drew  her  Mediterranean  traders  to 
this  ancient  mart  of  Lydia,  since  the  dawn  of  history 
an  outport  of  the  hither  East.  Rounding  the  Pelopon- 
nesus, passing  the  white  columns  of  Poseidon  on  Cape 
Sunium,  and  crossing  the  JEgean  to  Chios,  the  little 
brigs  and  barques  of  Boston  or  Plymouth,  keeping  a 
sharp  lookout  for  Levantine  pirates,  entered  a  gulf 
that  narrowed  to  a  point  where  sits  white  Smyrna. 
Here,  in  an  amphitheater  of  snow-crowned  mountains, 
whose  lower  slopes  were  bright  with  orange  and  almond 
blossoms  amid  silver-gray  olives,  verdant  fig  orchards 
and  somber  cypress  groves,  they  found  a  city  in  whose 
narrow  streets  Kurd  and  Anatolian  rubbed  shoulder 
with  Armenian,  Frank,  and  Greek;  where  Turkish  rule 
rested  lightly  on  survivors  of  ancient  sea-powers  — 
Tyrian  and  Hellenic,  Prankish  and  Maltese,  Genoese 
and  Venetian.  Easy  it  was  at  the  bazaars  to  swap 
clocks  and  cottons,  candles  and  rum,  for  the  products 
brought  in  by  camel-train,  pack-mule,  and  felucca; 
easier  still  to  sell  them  for  vague  promises  of  the  same. 
In  Smyrna,  as  in  every  Eastern  port,  business  ceased 
to  be  robbery  only  when  conducted  by  men  who  knew 
the  local  ways  and  customs. 

It  was  a  loyalist  merchant  of  Boston,  after  long 
wanderings  settling  at  Smyrna,  who  established  the 
permanent  connection  in  Federalist  days.  Two  other 
Bostonians  were  resident  there  by  1816.  Through 
them  and  their  successors  almost  all  the  Mediterra- 
nean merchants  of  Central  Wharf  did  a  certain  amount 

291 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

of  business;  but  the  bulk  of  the  traffic  was  absorbed  by 
two  adopted  citizens  of  Massachusetts.  The  Marquis 
Nicholas  Reggio,  of  a  Genoese  family  resident  at 
Smyrna  for  centuries,  and  Joseph  lasigi,  a  Smyrniote 
Armenian,  established  themselves  in  Boston  as  mer- 
chant-shipowners about  the  year  1830.  They  im- 
parted color  to  Boston  society,  and  erected  the  statues 
of  Columbus  and  Aristides  in  Louisburg  Square. 
Their  local,  almost  tribal  connections,  and  instinctive 
knowledge  of  the  devious,  immutable  methods  of 
Smyrna,  nailed  Boston's  supremacy  in  the  Eastern 
Mediterranean  for  the  rest  of  the  sailing-ship  era. 

In  a  valley  back  of  Smyrna  are  produced  the  best  figs 
in  the  world,  which,  sun-dried  and  packed  in  drums,  were 
shipped  to  Boston  in  sufficient  quantities  to  supply  all 
North  America.  Feluccas  and  camel-trains  brought  in 
coarse  wool  for  the  New  England  mills;  gum-arabic  and 
tragacanth,  essentials  for  cotton  printing;  sponges  and 
Turkey  carpets,  and  drugs  such  as  myrrh  and  scam- 
mony,  which  ante-bellum  physicians  loved  to  adminis- 
ter in  generous  doses.  Smyrna  opium  we  have  already 
mentioned.  The  Mediterranean  merchants  imported  it 
for  the  domestic  drug  trade,  and  the  China  merchants 
took  it  East  by  West;  almost  half  the  entire  crop,  about 
1820,  being  handled  by  one  Boston  firm  at  Canton. 

Naval  architecture  also  profited  by  our  Mediter- 
ranean trade.  Baltimore  clipper  brigs  and  schooners 
were  first  used  by  Mediterranean  merchants,  to  get 
their  fruit  to  market  in  good  season.  By  1830  Massa- 
chusetts builders  had  created  a  type  of  deep,  sharp 
brig  with  a  rakish  rig,  which  produced  as  much  speed  as 
the  Chesapeake  type  and  carried  more  cargo.  Among 
the  famous  'fruiters'  were  the  brigs  Water  Witch,1 

1  Brig  Water  Witch,  86'  6"  x  21'  3"  x  10'  4",  168  tons;  built  by 
Joseph  Clapp  on  the  North  River,  Scituate,  in  1831. 

292 


BARQUE  OSMANLI  OF  BOSTON  LYING  AT  SMYRNA,  1851 


BRIG  WATER  WITCH  OF  BOSTON  LEAVING  THE  MOLE 
OF  MALAGA,  1833 


MEDITERRANEAN  AND  BALTIC 

News  Boy,1  Sea  Mew,  and  Red  Rover.  After  bringing 
home  grapes  and  oranges  for  the  Thanksgiving  and 
Christmas  season,  they  would  often  make  a  winter 
voyage  to  Rio  de  Janeiro  or  to  the  West  Indies.  Cap- 
tain Paxton,  of  the  Water  Witch,  would  return  thence 
with  bunches  of  bananas  hanging  from  his  main  boom, 
for  distribution  among  the  friends  of  her  owner,  Ben- 
jamin C.  Clark.  Rivalry  for  each  new  crop  of  figs  be- 
tween the  houses  of  Reggio  and  lasigi  led  to  a  com- 
petitive building  of  swift  barques.  lasigi  &  Goodard's 
Osmanli,'2  painted  in  the  port  of  Smyrna  by  a  local 
artist,  is  here  shown;  in  the  clipper  ship  era  the  Reg- 
gios'  Smyrniote  was  only  surpassed  by  lasigi's  Race 
Horse*  which  also  distinguished  herself  in  the  San 
Francisco  trade. 


Fayal  in  the  Azores,  where  in  any  year  (save  three) 
between  1807  and  1892  one  would  discover  the  prin- 
cipal merchant  to  be  a  Dabney  of  Boston,  was  an  out- 
post of  the  Mediterranean  trade.  The  outward-bound 
whalers  stopped  there  to  pick  up  cheap  labor,  and  to 
unload  their  early  acquisitions  of  oil,  which  the  Dab- 
neys  then  shipped  to  Boston  in  their  own  vessels, 
bringing  back  foodstuffs  and  notions  for  the  Western 
Islanders.  Oranges  and  Pico  wine  were  local  products 
that  found  their  way  to  the  Boston  market.  When  his 
Dabney  brother-in-law  served  him  "Pico  Madeira," 

1  Brig  News  Boy,  in'  x  26'  2"  x  11'  5",  299  tons,  designed  by  D.  J. 
Lawler  and  built  at  Thomaston,  Maine,  for  Frederic  Cunningham  in 
1854. 

2  Barque  Osmanli,  106'  2"  x  24'  5"  x  15',  287  tons;  built  by  Water- 
man &  Ewell  at  Medford  in  1844. 

1  Barque  Race  Horse,  125'  x  30'  3"  x  16',  514  tons;  designed  by 
Samuel  H.  Pook,  and  built  by  Samuel  Hall  at  East  Boston  in  1850. 

293 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

Lewis  Cunningham  exclaimed,  "Charles,  I  am  very 

fond  of  you,  but  d n  your  wines!"  Like  other 

Bostonians,  he  preferred  the  genuine  article  from 
Funchal,  ripened  in  the  hold  of  an  East-Indiaman. 
Happily  for  our  Fayal  trade,  only  connoisseurs  could 
tell  the  difference.  Many  a  pipe  of  honest  Pico  was 
reshipped  from  Boston  as  "Choice  old  London  par- 
ticular." 

Baltic-bound  vessels  would  often  stop  at  Fayal  to 
top  off  their  cargoes  with  oranges,  whale-oil,  and  wine. 
For  Massachusetts  approached  Russia,  as  in  Feder- 
alist days,  by  a  long  detour  in  Southern  waters,  and 
her  merchants  managed  to  maintain  their  early  su- 
premacy in  the  Baltic  until  the  Civil  War.1 

Sugar,  shipbuilding,  and  cotton  were  the  three  keys 
to  this  triangular  trade.  Boston  vessels  took  mixed 
cargoes  to  Havana,  and  there  loaded  sugar  for  the 
Baltic.  By  this  means  they  paid  for  the  Russia  hemp 
and  Baltic  iron,  which  until  the  Civil  War  were  es- 
sential raw  materials  for  American  shipbuilding. 
Manila  was  used  on  our  merchantmen  for  sheets  and 
halyards,  lifts  and  braces;  but  the  stout,  inelastic 
Russia  hemp  was  required  for  bolt-rope  and  standing 
rigging.  Russia  hemp  upheld  the  lofty  spars  of  our 
clipper  ships,  and  indeed  of  all  our  vessels,  until  wire 
rigging  was  introduced  in  the  sixties.  Russian  iron 
was  preferred  by  the  harpoon-makers  of  New  Bedford ; 
Swedish  iron  was  used  for  the  metal-work  of  wooden 

1  In  1820  seventy-seven  American  vessels  passed  the  Sound  on  home- 
ward passage.  Of  these  twenty-nine  were  destined  for  Boston,  eight  for 
Salem,  two  for  Newburyport,  one  for  Marblehead,  Gloucester,  Plymouth, 
Beverly,  and  New  Bedford.  In  1840,  out  of  sixty-four  American  vessels 
entering  St.  Petersburg,  forty-nine  belonged  in  Massachusetts;  and  out 
of  sixty-five  vessels  entering  the  United  States  from  St.  Petersburg  and 
Riga,  thirty-two  came  to  Boston  and  twelve  (five  of  which  belonged  in 
Massachusetts)  to  New  York. ,  See  also  statistics  in  Appendix. 

294 


MEDITERRANEAN  AND  BALTIC 

ships,  and  in  the  ironworks  of  Plymouth  County, 
which  had  fairly  exhausted  the  native  ore.  From 
Russia,  too,  came  a  superior  grade  of  iron  boiler-plate, 
the  secret  of  whose  composition  eluded  the  Pennsyl- 
vania ironmasters  for  fifty  years;  also  bristles  for  the 
brush  factories,  rags  for  the  paper-mills,  crash  and 
linen  for  the  housewives  of  New  England,  and  ex- 
pensive furs  sewed  up  in  leather  trunks. 

Boston  remained  the  American  emporium  for  Baltic 
products  partly  because  it  was  the  natural  distributing 
point  for  shipbuilding  materials,  but  mostly  from  the 
enterprise  of  her  merchants.  We  have  already  seen,  in 
William  Bordman's  letter-book,  how  a  Baltic  voyage 
fitted  into  the  activities  of  a  typical  shipping  mer- 
chant. Brigs  and  small  ships  were  especially  built  for 
the  trade.  The  itinerary  of  one  such,  the  brig  Cronstadt 
(100  feet  long,  273  tons),  built  on  the  North  River 
in  1829  for  Thomas  B.  Wales  and  others  of  Boston,1 
shows  that  even  vessels  as  small  as  the  usual  Mediter- 
ranean fruiter  could  be  profitably  employed.  Baltic- 
bound  cargoes  were  commonly  owned  in  thirds  by  the 
shipowner,  the  Cuban  sugar  merchant,  and  the  Rus- 
sian consignee,  who  got  the  lion's  share  of  profits 
through  commissions  not  only  on  sales,  but  upon  the 
heavy  import  duty,  together  with  fees  and  tips  as 
varied  as  the  cumshaws  of  Canton. 

In  order  to  absorb  to  his  own  profit  these  heavy 
charges,  William  Ropes,  of  a  Salem  family  long  expert 
in  the  Russian  trade,  established  himself  at  St.  Peters- 
burg in  1832,  and  was  admitted  to  the  guild  of  mer- 
chants. He  gave  the  Baltic  trade  a  fresh  impetus  by 

1  1834:  Boston-Cuba-St.  Petersburg  twice,  and  Boston-Charleston- 
Marseilles  with  cotton.  1835-36:  Boston-Matanzas-St.  Petersburg 
twice;  Boston-Charleston-Rotterdam.  1837:  Boston-Rio  de  Janeiro- 
Hamburg  twice,  with  coffee,  and  Boston-Charleston-Amsterdam;  etc. 

295 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

importing  Southern  cotton  in  his  own  ships,  to  supply 
the  new  factories  at  Narva,  Riga,  and  Reval.  Leaving 
his  son  William  Hooper  Ropes  in  charge  of  the  Rus- 
sian branch,  he  returned  to  Boston,  and  resumed  the 
active  charge  of  his  firm.  As  soon  as  mineral  illuminat- 
ing oil  began  to  replace  the  New  Bedford  product, 
William  Ropes  exported  it  to  Russia,  and  before  his 
death  in  1859  Ropski  kerosin  was  known  throughout 
the  Empire. 

William  H.  Ropes,  attended  by  his  head  clerk,  and  a 
large  dog  "Tiger"  as  protection  against  bandits,  trav- 
eled by  sleigh  thousands  of  miles  in  the  interior  of 
Russia  every  winter  to  buy  bolt-rope,  crash,  and 
sheet-iron  from  the  local  merchants.  His  hobby  was 
distributing  among  the  peasants  religious  tracts,  trans- 
lated into  Russian  by  his  student  brother  of  the  Im- 
perial University;  his  favorite  charity,  and  his  father's, 
was  to  give  free  passage  in  his  ships,  and  hospitality 
at  his  mansion  on  the  English  Quay,  to  overworked 
New  England  ministers. 

The  Ropeses  were  not  the  only  Russia  merchants 
of  Boston.  The  fortune  that  built  Fenway  Court  is 
said  to  have  originated  in  those  northern  waters. 
Enoch  Train,  the  daring  and  public-spirited  founder 
of  the  Train  packet-line,  saw  that  the  Baltic  cotton 
trade  would  require  larger  vessels.  Waterman  & 
Ewell  built  for  him  at  Medford  in  1839  the  ship 
St.  Petersburg,  which  broke  all  previous  records  for 
size  in  New  England  shipbuilding;  she  was  160  feet 
long,  33  feet  broad,  and  814  tons  burthen.  With  the 
painted  ports  and  square  stern  of  a  New  York  packet- 
ship,  she  had  such  beautiful  fittings  and  accommoda- 
tions as  to  attract  thousands  of  sight-seers  at  every 
port.  Richard  Trask,  of  Manchester,  her  master  and 
part  owner,  was  one  of  the  dandy  merchant-captains 

296 


MEDITERRANEAN  AND  BALTIC 

of  his  generation.  After  arranging  for  the  return  cargo 
at  St.  Petersburg  and  visiting  his  friends,  he  would 
leave  the  vessel  in  charge  of  the  first  officer  and  return 
via  London  by  steamer. 

Somewhat  akin  to  the  Baltic  trade  was  the  coffee 
carry  ing- trade  from  Brazil  to  Antwerp,  Amsterdam, 
Hamburg,  and  Konigsberg;  and  the  staves  and 
brandy  trade  between  Norfolk  and  La  Rochelle,  in 
which  Thomas  B.  Wales  and  Nathaniel  H.  Emmons 
kept  several  small  vessels  employed.  But  to  analyze 
every  minor  route  of  foreign  trade  that  began  and 
ended  at  Boston  would  be  an  endless  task.  Peruse,  if 
you  will,  in  the  Appendix,  the  list  of  foreign  ports  from 
which  vessels  cleared  for  Boston  in  1857,  for  emphatic 
proof  of  the  variety  and  interest  of  her  foreign  com- 
merce. 


Space  and  time  likewise  forbid  a  proper  analysis  of 
the  North  American  coasting  trade  of  Massachusetts. 
In  1831  American  tonnage  engaged  in  coasting  for  the 
first  time  exceeded  the  registered  tonnage  in  foreign 
trade,  and  the  disproportion  grew  in  spite  of  the  rail- 
roads. Coal  and  cotton  explain  the  change.  James 
Collier,  of  Cohasset  (1813-91),  who  once  won  a  bet  in 
London  for  having  commanded  more  vessels  and  voy- 
ages than  any  shipmaster  in  port,  first  won  the  title  of 
captain  at  the  age  of  eighteen,  by  taking  the  schooner 
Profit  from  Boston  to  Norfolk,  returning  with  a  cargo 
of  coal  for  the  Ames  plow  works.  It  was  landed  at 
Weymouth  and  carted  to  North  Easton.  In  the  forties 
this  trade  increased  as  the  use  of  stoves  and  furnaces 
became  general,  as  hardwood  disappeared  from  the 
Maine  coast,  and  as  tidewater  textile  mills  were  es- 

297 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

tablished  at  Newburyport,  Salem,  New  Bedford,  and 
Fall  River.  Until  the  adoption  of  steam-towed  coal 
barges,  after  the  Civil  War,  the  freighting  of  lumber 
and  apples,  fish  and  ice  between  New  England  and 
Philadelphia  and  Norfolk,  to  return  with  coal,  em- 
ployed a  great  fleet  of  small  sloops  and  schooners, 
representing  the  labor  and  the  savings  of  seafarers  in 
every  village  from  Eastport  to  Westport. 

The  corn  and  cotton  trade  with  the  lower  South, 
which  we  have  already  noted  in  several  connections, 
deserves  mention  as  one  of  the  most  lucrative  routes 
for  Massachusetts  vessels  between  1830  and  1860. 
In  part  it  was  a  coasting  trade ;  in  part,  the  last  sailing- 
ship  phase  of  a  Massachusetts  interest  two  centuries 
old  —  the  carrying  of  Southern  staples  to  a  market. 
Year  by  year  the  wealthy  Cotton  Belt  wore  out  more 
boots  and  shoes,  purchased  more  cottons  for  her  slaves, 
used  more  Quincy  granite  in  her  public  buildings,  and 
consumed  more  Fresh  Pond  ice  in  her  mint  juleps. 
The  New  England  mills,  on  their  part,  were  calling 
for  more  cotton;  and  every  pound  of  it  that  they  re- 
ceived, before  the  Civil  War,  came  by  sailing  vessel 
from  Charleston,  Savannah,  Mobile,  and  New  Or- 
leans. The  factory  hands  were  equally  hungry  for 
cheap  food.  Boston's  total  imports  by  sea  from  New 
Orleans  totaled  $3,334,000  in  1839,  and  steadily  rose; 
in  the  period  from  September  I,  1841,  to  May  I,  1842, 
one-quarter  of  the  lard,  more  than  one-quarter  of  the 
flour,  nearly  half  the  pork  and  more  than  half  the  corn 
shipped  out  of  New  Orleans  went  to  Boston. 

Sailing  packet-lines  were  insufficient  to  fill  this  de- 
mand. One  hundred  and  seventy-five  vessels  cleared 
from  Boston  in  1855  for  New  Orleans  alone.  But  not 
all  of  them  returned  directly  to  Boston.  The  typical 
Massachusetts  cotton-carrier,  after  waiting  for  a 

298 


MEDITERRANEAN  AND  BALTIC 

place  on  the  crowded  levee  of  New  Orleans,  while  the 
air  rang  with  shouts  of  negro  roustabouts  and  wild 
chanties  of  cotton-screwers'  gangs,  took  the  best  pay- 
ing freight  she  could  get  to  any  foreign  port.  In  keen 
competition  with  the  merchant  marine  of  England, 
France,  and  Germany,  our  vessels  supplied  the  cotton- 
mills  of  Lancashire,  Normandy,  Flanders,  Alsace, 
Prussia,  Saxony,  and  the  Baltic  provinces.  When 
freights  were  good  —  and  anything  above  a  cent  a 
pound  made  a  '  saving  voyage '  —  a  ship  would  dis- 
charge her  cargo  at  Havre  or  Liverpool,  and  hasten 
back  in  ballast  for  more  cotton.1  Otherwise  she  took 
a  European  cargo  to  Boston,  or  was  chartered  by  a 
packet-line  at  Liverpool  to  relieve  the  heavy  emigrant 
traffic.  Boston's  imports  from  England  far  exceeded 
those  from  any  other  country,  and  the  freight  money 
on  cotton  went  a  long  way  toward  balancing  accounts. 
Cotton,  in  fact,  was  the  most  important  medium  in 
our  carrying  trade,  replacing  colonial  rum  and  codfish, 
and  the  Oriental  goods  of  Federalist  days. 

Few  converts  were  obtained  by  the  abolitionists 
in  Boston  counting-rooms.  Society,  business,  and 
politics  in  Massachusetts  were  dominated  by  a  triple 
entente  between  the  "Lords  of  the  Lash  and  the  Lords 
of  the  Loom"  —  and  the  Lords  of  Long  Wharf. 

1  The  records  of  the  ship  Rubicon  (Medford  built,  490  tons)  from 
1836  to  1838  show  that  in  two  years,  on  a  total  investment  of  $25,094.28 
and  disbursements  of  $10,960.40,  she  made  $29,698.43  "cash  receipts" 
for  her  owners  in  the  New  Orleans-Havre  cotton  trade. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

CAPE  COD  AND  CAPE  ANN 
I82O-I86O 

CAPE  COD  was  ripening  off,  as  Thoreau  walked  its 
sandy  length  in  1855.  Untouched,  through  lack  of 
water-power,  by  the  industrial  revolution;  neglected 
alike  by  foreign  commerce  and  railroad ;  producing  but 
a  fraction  of  its  own  food;  Barnstable  County  in- 
creased in  population  and  in  wealth  solely  by  the  skill 
of  its  people  in  farming  the  sea.  The  towns  and  vil- 
lages of  the  Cape,  from  Sandwich  to  Provincetown, 
and  down  the  back  side  around  Chatham  to  Wood's 
Hole,  increased  their  sea-borne  tonnage  six  fold  be- 
tween 1815  and  1850.  Not  only  Barnstable  and  Prov- 
incetown, but  every  tidal  harbor  and  tiny  creek  — 
Yarmouthport,  Sesuet,  Namskaket,  Herring  River, 
Rock  Harbor,  Wellfleet,  Pamet,  Chatham,  Bass  River, 
Harwichport,  Hyannis,  Osterville,  and  Cotuit  —  had 
its  fishing  fleet,  with  dependent  shipyards,  sail-lofts, 
stores,  and  wharves.  Coasting  vessels  plied  "down 
East"  or  "out  South,"  and  made  foreign  connections 
at  Boston,  to  which  every  place  on  the  Bay  side  ran  a 
sailing  packet.  Provincetown  and  Wood's  Hole  had  a 
small  fleet  of  whalers,  and  all  parts  received  an  occa- 
sional oily  bounty  from  a  school  of  blackfish,  driven  on 
the  beach  and  tried  out  by  the  united  effort  of  the 
community,  with  a  spirit  that  would  delight  Lenin. 

Of  the  minority  that  did  not  engage  in  fishing  or 
coasting,  the  more  adventurous  entered  the  merchant 
marine,  the  stay-at-homes  worked  the  oyster-beds  and 
clam-flats,  or  harnessed  wind  and  sun  to  extract  salt 

300 


CAPE  COD  AND  CAPE  ANN 

from  the  sea.1  Many  young  men  worked  at  a  trade  in 
Charleston  or  some  other  Southern  seaport  during 
the  winter,  returning  to  the  Cape  by  sea  in  time  for 
a  summer's  fishing.  Widows  and  retired  captains  in- 
vested their  savings  in  sixteenth-shares  of  fishing  ves- 
sels, or  in  the  stock  of  a  local  marine  insurance  com- 
pany. Until  1850  almost  every  one  lived  in  a  snug 
Cape  cottage,  built  with  that  nice  sense  of  proportion 
that  a  ship-carpenter  instinctively  absorbs.  The  pop- 
ulation of  thirty-five  thousand  (1850)  was  ninety- five 
per  cent  native-born,  and  in  about  the  same  propor- 
tion dependent  on  the  sea  for  a  livelihood. 

Distinct  section  that  it  was,  Cape  Cod's  every  town 
was  distinctive.  Chatham  had  a  small  fleet  of  shad- 
seiners  about  1840.  Provincetown,  with  its  capacious 
harbor,  had  the  largest  fleet  of  fishermen  and  whalers, 
and  the  greatest  salt-works.  Her  shores  were  lined 
with  picturesque  windmills,  which  pumped  sea-water 
into  pine  vats  for  evaporation;  her  quaint  cottages 
emerged  from  sand  and  fish-flakes,  instead  of  gardens 
and  shrubbery.  Brewster,  having  no  proper  harbor, 
was  a  nursery  of  sea-captains  for  the  merchant  marine, 
and  snug  harbor  in  their  old  age.  Barnstable,  the 
county  seat,  had  a  native  aristocracy  of  lawyers, 
judges,  and  clipper-ship  commanders.  Sandwich, 
where  the  Cape  begins,  capitalized  Cape  sand.  Its 
six-acre  glass  factory  was  the  largest  in  the  country, 
and  one  of  the  first  in  New  England  to  use  steam 
power. 

Wellfleet  maintained  its  oyster-breeding  reputation. 
Seed  oysters  were  obtained  in  Wareham  Harbor,  the 

1  The  salt  industry  on  the  Cape  did  not  entirely  close  until  about 
1870,  but  it  was  pretty  well  killed  off  before  the  Civil  War,  through  the 
import  duty  being  reduced  from  twenty  to  two  cents  per  bushel,  1830-46. 
In  1837  the  Cape  had  668  salt-works  and  produced  to  the  value  of 
$ 225,098;  in  1855  this  had  fallen  to  181  and  $47,657. 

301 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

Taunton  River,  and  other  points  in  Buzzard's  and 
Narragansett  bays.  In  winter  the  local  mackerel  fleet 
brought  bivalves  from  Chesapeake  Bay  and  bedded 
them  down  on  the  Wellfleet  flats,  where  during  the 
R-less  months  they  grew  plump  for  the  Boston  market. 
About  1824  Wellfleet  schooners  began  bringing  Vir- 
ginia oysters  directly  to  Northern  markets;  but  a 
sojourn  behind  Billingsgate  Island  greatly  enhanced 
their  value.  In  the  fifties  the  canning  industry  ex- 
tended the  market  not  only  for  oysters,  but  for  lobster 
and  Penobscot  salmon.  From  colonial  times  to  the 
present,  almost  every  oyster-dealer  in  New  England 
has  been  a  Wellfleet  man.  Isaac  Rich  climbed  on 
oyster-shells  to  a  fortune,  which  he  left  to  Boston 
University. 

A  regional  readjustment  in  the  fishing  industry  went 
on  between  1835  and  I&55.1  Boston,  the  second  great- 
est fishing  port  in  1837,  gradually  went  out  of  the 
business,  and  no  other  town  on  Boston  Bay  but  Hing- 
ham  owned  a  fishing  schooner  in  1855.  The  South 
Shore  and  the  Merrimac  declined;  the  North  Shore 
remained  stationary.  The  only  regions  which  in- 
creased their  fleet  during  these  eighteen  years  were 
Cape  Cod,  and  her  rocky  rival  Cape  Ann.  The  latter's 
fishing  fleet  in  1837  was  less  than  half  that  of  Cape 
Cod.  But  in  the  next  twenty  years  Cape  Ann  caught 
up.  The  population  of  Gloucester  and  Rockport  (sep- 
arated in  1840)  more  than  doubled  between  1820  and 
1855.  Sandy  Bay  Breakwater  (hardy  perennial  of 
river  and  harbor  bills),  which  the  federal  government 
began  to  construct  about  1836,  protected  the  fishing 
coves  on  the  exposed  side  of  Cape  Ann,  and  made  it 
possible  for  the  Rockport  granite  quarries  to  compete 
with  Quincy.  But  concentration  was  the  tendency  of 

1  See  statistics  in  Appendix. 
302 


CAPE  COD  AND  CAPE  ANN 

the  age,  and  "the  harbor"  (Gloucester)  gradually  ab- 
sorbed all  Cape  Ann  fisheries. 

Newburyport  lost  half  her  fleet  in  this  period,  but 
codfishing  remained  the  typical  industry  of  the  smaller 
ports  of  Essex  County  until  the  Civil  War.  Swamp- 
scott,  despite  an  influx  of  summer  boarders,  increased 
her  fleet  to  thirty-nine  small  schooners,  dried  her  cod- 
fish exceptionally  well,  and  remained  the  last  place 
where  the  delectable  dunfish  was  properly  cured.1  It 
was  no  uncommon  sight  to  see  fifty  to  one  hundred 
farmers'  teams  at  one  time  on  King's  and  Blaney's 
beaches,  dickering  with  the  fishermen  for  a  winter's 
supply. 

"Our  neighbors  of  Beverly  have  dropped  quietly 
back  into  the  fisheries  again,"  writes  Dr.  Bentley  in 
1816.  "I  saw  several  fields  replanted  with  flakes, 
which  had  been  divided  for  house  lots. ...  At  Beverly 
they  have  received  half  a  million  of  fish  in  16  vessels." 
Her  fleet  rose  from  twenty-one  sail  in  1825  to  sixty- 
four  in  1840,  when  it  began  to  decline:  and  the  Beverly 
schooners  were  Grand  Bankers,  thrice  the  tonnage  of 
the  Swampscott  vessels. 

Shoemaking  brought  a  great  change  in  the  economy 
of  North  Shore  fishing  ports  after  1815.  The  schoon- 
ers, instead  of  refitting  for  a  winter's  trading  voyage, 
were  now  hauled  out  by  Thanksgiving  Day;  the  fish- 
ermen, instead  of  idling  or  shipping  abroad,  pegged 
and  cut  shoes  in  a  neighborly  "ten-footer"  shop,  dis- 
cussing meanwhile  the  ways  of  fish  and  politicians, 
ships  and  women.  Many  fishermen  from  '  abroad ' 

1  Fish  for  'dunning*  at  this  period  was  caught  in  deep  water,  pref- 
erably off  the  Isles  of  Shoals  in  early  spring.  It  was  split  and  slack 
salted,  piled  up  for  two  or  three  months,  covered  with  salt  hay  or  eel 
grass  in  a  dark  store,  uncovered  once  and  restacked  under  pressure,  and 
by  late_summer,  if  nothing  went  wrong,  had  acquired  the  proper  ripeness 
and  dun  color. 

303 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

(Cape  Cod)  brought  their  catch  for  curing  to  Beverly,1 
whose  rocky  shores  as  far  as  West  Beach  were  white 
and  odorous  every  autumn  with  drying  cod.  A  pleas- 
ant, well-balanced  life  had  the  North  Shore  fisherman- 
farmer-shoemakers,  for  about  two  generations.  The 
industrial  revolution  then  made  a  factory  industry  of 
their  sociable  handicraft;  and  on  the  stony  acres  of 
their  forefathers  arose  the  palaces  and  Italian  gardens 
of  a  new  feudalism. 

Marblehead  still  had  a  large  fleet  of  Bankers,  and 
even  in  its  absence  the  Provincetown  mackerel  fleet, 
putting  in  for  shelter,  would  fill  her  harbor  with  sail. 
Glorious  nights  there  were,  when  the  Cape  Codders 
came  ashore,  bent  on  draining  every  Marblehead  grog- 
shop, kissing  every  Marblehead  girl,  and  blacking  the 
eyes  of  every  Marblehead  boy.  Glorious  mornings 
followed,  when  a  clearing  northwest  breeze  sent  wave- 
lets slap-slap-slapping  on  black  topsides,  while  the 
surf  still  roared  outside;  when  to  the  chuckling  chorus 
of  halyard  blocks,  foresails  and  mainsails  arose  to 
catch  the  dawn;  when  "Shanandore"  or  "Lowlands" 
from  five  hundred  lusty  throats,  brought  up,  all  stand- 
ing, such  aged  natives  as  had  thought  it  worth  while 
to  retire.  Glorious  days,  too,  when  the  Marblehead 
Banker  fleet  departed  for  its  summer  fare.  Church- 
bells  ring,  fish-horns  blare,  and  in  sight  of  the  whole 
town  each  schooner,  dressed  in  all  her  colors  and  new- 
est suit,  must  sail  up  and  down  the  harbor  thrice, 
and  for  good  luck  toss  a  penny  on  Halfway  Rock. 

Plymouth  increased  her  fishing  fleet  at  this  period 
to  over  fifty  sail,  and  specialized  in  mackerel;  but 
the  smaller  South  Shore  fishing  villages  allowed  their 

1  On  account  of  her  early  railroad  facilities,  which  attracted  buyers 
from  the  interior.  The  Eastern  Railroad  reached  Salem  in  1838,  Marble- 
head  and  Beverly  in  1839. 

304 


CAPE  COD  AND  CAPE  ANN 

fleets  to  decline  in  the  forties.  Probably  the  active 
shipyards  of  Cohasset,  Scituate,  the  North  River,  and 
Duxbury  were  absorbing  the  slack.  West  of  the  Cape 
there  was  little  codfishing;  but  the  Maine  coast  was 
becoming  a  worthy  rival. 

Expansion  marked  the  industry  as  a  whole  between 
1820  and  1860.  Mackerel-fishing  now  for  the  first 
time  attained  the  dignity  and  importance  of  codfish- 
ing.  The  sportive  and  elusive  mackerel  taxed  the  in- 
genuity of  fishermen  far  more  than  the  stolid  cod,  but 
the  amount  of  him  brought  into  Massachusetts  in- 
creased from  twelve  thousand  barrels  full,  the  highest 
for  any  year  before  the  war,  to  over  three  hundred 
thousand  in  1830.  Prices  rose  as  well.1  There  fol- 
lowed a  lean  decade,  when  the  mackerel  fled  the  coast, 
but  in  1840  a  series  of  heavy  catches  began  again.  In 
1851  the  mackerel  fleet  of  Massachusetts  numbered 
eight  hundred  and  fifty  sail,  of  over  fifty- three  thou- 
sand tons  burthen. 

The  same  types  of  vessel  were  used  in  mackerel  as  in 
codfishing.  Chebacco  boats  and  'heel-tappers'  were 
gradually  superseded  by  pinkies  —  an  enlarged  and 
improved  Chebacco  boat  with  bowsprit  and  jib,  meas- 
uring twenty  to  sixty  tons.2  About  1830  a  new  type 
of  square-sterned  schooner,  of  twenty  to  ninety  tons 
burthen,  came  into  use.  Apple-bowed,  barrel-sided, 
and  clumsy  craft  that  they  were,  these  'new-style 
bankers'  or  'jiggers'  had  easier  lines  than  the  old  type, 
and  a  flush  deck.  They  were  built  all  along  the  New 

1  The  price  of  No.  i  mackerel  rose  from  $5  per  barrel  in  1830  to  $ii) 
in  1856.  Codfish  in  the  same  period  rose  from  $2.12  to  $3.75  per  quintal 
of  112  pounds. 

*  The  measurements  of  an  early  pinkie,  the  "pink-stern  schooner 
Pink  of  Edgartown,"  in  the  Plymouth  registry  for  1810,  are  42'  x  12'  6" 
X  5'  3"i  tonnage  24}.  One  is  shown  in  the  engraving  of  Boston  Harbor 
in  chapter  xxil. 

305 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

England  shore  from  Frenchman's  Bay  to  Dartmouth. 
In  accommodations  they  were  no  improvement  on 
earlier  models.  All  the  cooking,  even  the  tea  and  coffee, 
was  done  in  a  large  iron  pot  over  a  brick  hearth  di- 
rectly under  the  fore  scuttle,  through  which  the  smoke 
was  supposed  to  find  its  way  out.  Halibut's  fins  and 
napes,  smoked  to  a  pungent  flavor  on  the  cabin  beams 
of  the  pinkies  and  jiggers,  were  a  favorite  delicacy  in 
Massachusetts  coast  towns. 

Swampscott  adopted  small,  fast  schooners  of  im- 
proved model  about  I84O.1  The  launching,  at  Essex, 
of  the  so-called  clipper  schooner  Romp,  in  1847,  ex- 
tended this  principle  to  the  larger  vessels.  Only  two 
years  elapsed  before  Samuel  Hall  designed  the  schoon- 
ers Express  and  Telegraph  for  the  Wellfleet  oyster  and 
mackerel  fleet.  Of  clipper  model,  increased  size  (one 
hundred  tons  or  thereabouts),  and  large  sail  area, 
these  vessels  set  the  fashion  for  New  England  fishing 
schooners  for  the  next  generation.  The  Frank  Atwood, 
designed  by  Donald  McKay  in  1868,  was  the  most 
famous  of  this  class.  But  the  clipper  schooners  were 
too  shallow  and  tender  for  safety;  every  great  storm 
brought  a  holocaust  of  New  England  fishermen. 
About  1890  a  new,  faster,  and  safer  type  was  evolved 
through  the  collaboration  of  yacht  designers  with 
master  mariners.  To  this  class  belongs  the  Esperanto, 
champion  of  the  North  American  fishing  fleet  in  1920. 

In  codfishing  the  ancient  method  of  hand-lining 
from  the  vessel's  deck,  day  and  night,  prevailed  untiT 
the  Civil  War.   Stories  are  told  of  'high-liners'  who 
fished  twenty  hours  a  day,  lashed  to  the  rigging  lest 
they  fall  overboard  when  they  dozed  off.   Mackerel- 
fishing  was  more  sporty.   The  schools  were  generally 
found  within  fifty  miles  of  the  New  England  coast, 
1  See  picture  of  Nahant  regatta,  above. 
306 


MACKEREL  SCHOONER  FRANK  ATWOOD  OF  WELLFLEET 


BANKER  AND  CHEBACCO  BOAT  IN  GLOUCESTER  HARBOR 


CAPE  COD  AND  CAPE  ANN 

and  at  times  they  struck  into  Massachusetts  Bay  in 
such  numbers  that  a  vessel  could  make  her  '  trip  o'  fish ' 
twixt  dawn  and  dark.  But  often  the  mackerel  schoon- 
ers would  sail  "clear  to  Scatteree"  in  search  of  a  fare. 

The  universal  method  of  catching  mackerel  was 
'jigging.'  A  mackerel  'jig,'  invented  about  1812,  was 
simply  a  hook  around  the  shank  of  which  was  cast  a 
plummet  of  lead  or  pewter.  For  bait,  herring  or  small 
mackerel,  or  menhaden  ('po'gies')  were  'slivered' 
(sliced),  and  then  ground  up  by  the  night  watch  iii  a 
bait-mill  like  a  farmer's  feed-cutter.  A  favorite  Cape 
Cod  joke  was  the  fisherman  whose  wife  had  to  grind  a 
bait-mill  at  home  to  make  him  sleep. 

A  school  of  mackerel  was  'tolled*  or  attracted  to 
the  surface  by  throwing  this  chopped  bait  broadcast 
while  the  vessel  slowly  drifted,  hove  to.  The  fish 
were  caught  on  sliver-baited  jigs,  each  member  of  the 
crew  handling  two  or  three  short  lines,  and  dextrously 
snapping  his  mackerel  into  a  barrel  with  the  same  mo- 
tion that  jerked  him  out  of  water.  It  was  an  exciting 
moment  when  flashes  of  silver  and  drumming  of  lively 
fish  in  empty  barrels  announced  that  a  'spurt'  had 
struck  the  edge  of  the  fleet;  and  each  master,  with 
hair's-breadth  handling  that  a  yachtsman  would  envy, 
endeavored  to  dribble  his  schooner  under  the  lee  bow 
of  some  vessel  with  a  'fishy'  skipper,  like  "Osceola 
Dick"  Rich,  of  Truro,  or  John  Pew,  of  Gloucester. 
The  sight  of  such  a  fleet,  two  hundred  sail,  perhaps, 
engaged  in  these  nervous  evolutions;  or  (as  Thoreau 
saw  them)  'pouring  around  the  Cape';  or,  winging  it 
for  home  with  a  full  fare,  was  one  of  the  many  beauti- 
ful maritime  spectacles  of  sailing  days. 

Mackerel  were  dressed  and  salted  on  board  the  ves- 
sel that  caught  them,  culled  (graded)  on  shore  under 
the  eye  of  a  deputy-inspector  appointed  by  the  com- 

307 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

monwealth,  and  barreled  by  young  boys  at  three  to 
five  cents  a  barrel.  Massachusetts-inspected  salt  mack- 
erel was  distributed  all  over  the  country.  In  1835 
Georgia  took  thirty-seven  thousand  barrels,  and 
Philadelphia,  one  hundred  thousand.  Toward  the 
end  of  our  period  some  sharp  Yankees  who  lived  in 
states  where  there  were  no  inspection  laws,  began 
" re-inspecting"  Massachusetts  mackerel,  so  that  the 
lower  grades  could  be  passed  off  on  inland  consumers 
as  number  one. 

Both  mackerel  and  codfishing  were  much  hampered 
by  the  British  treaty  of  1818,  under  which  the  Cana- 
dian and  Provincial  authorities  undertook  to  with- 
draw our  ancient  access  to  the  shores  and  territorial 
waters  of  Labrador  and  the  Bay  of  Chaleur.  A  revival 
came  in  the  thirties,  when  Gloucestermen  began  to 
frequent  the  Georges  Bank,  only  a  hundred  miles  east 
of  Cape  Cod.  For  generations  fishermen  had  visited 
these  dangerous  ocean  shoals  without  daring  to  anchor, 
for  fear  of  being  'drored  under'  by  the  tide;  and  mod- 
ern drift-fishing  with  cusk  bait  had  not  been  invented. 
After  Captain  Samuel  Wonson  had  proved  one  could 
anchor  in  safety,  winter-fishing  on  the  Georges  became 
the  chief  supply  for  the  fresh-fish  business. 

This  important  branch  of  the  fisheries,  nowadays 
far  more  lucrative  than  the  salt-fish  business,  began  its 
first  extension  beyond  tidewater  radius  about  1837, 
when  some  smart  Yankee  combined  ice,  fresh  fish,  and 
the  railroad.  The  fish  were  brought  alive  in  salt-water 
wells  in  the  vessels'  holds  l  to  Boston,  where  they  were 
dressed,  iced,  and  shipped  inland  by  rail.  As  early  as 
the  season  of  1843-44,  one  Boston  firm  was  sending 
almost  half  a  million  pounds  of  fresh  cod,  haddock, 

1  Vessels  with  wells  for  keeping  fish  alive  were  called  'smacks,'  the 
only  use  of  that  term  in  the  Massachusetts  fisheries. 

308 


CAPE  COD  AND  CAPE  ANN 

and  halibut  to  New  York,  Albany,  and  Philadelphia. 
When  the  railroad  reached  Gloucester,  in  1846,  that 
port  began  to  compete  with  Boston  in  fresh-fishing, 
and  two  or  three  years  later  the  Georges  Bankers 
began  to  carry  ice  with  them,  and  to  chill  the  fish  as 
soon  as  caught;  a  method  which  enabled  even  mack- 
erel to  be  shipped  fresh.  Haddock  and  halibut,  formerly 
a  drug  in  the  market,  now  became  valuable  parts  of 
the  catch. 

The  market  for  salt  codfish  changed  radically  after 
the  Peace  of  Ghent.  Exports  to  Europe  fell  off  to  al- 
most nothing  by  1832.  The  West  Indies  and  Surinam, 
where  Gloucester  disposed  of  her  hake  and  lowest- 
grade  dried  fish,  took  over  ninety  per  cent  of  our 
foreign  exports ;  but  the  amount  remained  constant  to 
the  average  of  Federalist  days.  All  the  increase  in 
production  was  absorbed  by  the  domestic  market, 
which  in  1840  took  three-quarters  of  the  fish  cured  in 
New  England.  Yankee  pioneers  saw  to  it  that  a  taste 
for  salt-fish  dinners  kept  pace  with  the  westward- 
striding  frontier.  Consequently  there  was  an  increase 
in  the  Grand  Banks  codfishing  fleet,  parallel  to  that 
of  the  mackerel  fishermen. 

Although  the  fisheries  made  a  smaller  contribution 
than  whaling  to  the  production  statistics  of  Massa- 
chusetts, the  workers  got  a  much  larger  share  of  the 
profits.  In  cod  and  mackerel  fishing  the  share  system 
has  continued  to  this  day,  and  has  never  become  the 
caricature  of  communism  that  it  did  in  New  Bedford. 

At  Gloucester,  the  vessels  were  owned  by  a  distinct 
class  of  merchant-shipowners,  who  also  kept  general 
stores  and  acted  as  wholesale  distributers.  All  sup- 
plies were  furnished  by  the  owners,  each  fisherman 
getting  half  of  his  catch,  and  the  skipper  an  addi- 
tional bonus  of  six  to  eight  per  cent  on  the  gross 

309 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

amount.  On  Cape  Cod  and  the  other  fishing  sections, 
the  system  was  more  democratic.  The  vessels  were 
owned  generally  in  sixteenth-shares;  sometimes,  in 
part,  by  their  own  crews.  Every  one  fished  "on  his 
own  hook,"  furnishing  his  lines  and  gear  and  part  of 
his  food.  The  "great  general"  —  essential  food  such 
as  salt  meat  and  biscuit,  and  ship  chandlery  —  was 
furnished  by  the  owners,  who  deducted  the  cost  from 
the  "whole  stock"  (gross  proceeds)  of  the  trip  before 
a  division  was  made.1  In  some  ports  there  was  also  a 
"small  general"  including  firewood,  beans,  potatoes, 
and  meal,  the  cost  of  which  was  divided  among  the 
crew.  Prior  to  the  temperance  movement  rum  was 
considered  as  necessary  for  the  fisherman  as  bait  for 
the  fish;  and  every  one  took  from  three  to  six  gallons 
of  the  liquor  to  sea  with  him  for  a  four  months'  cruise. 
But  "at  the  present  time,"  writes  Dr.  Thatcher  of 
Plymouth  in  1832,  "some  vessels  go  entirely  without 
ardent  spirits."  Having  deducted  the  "great  general," 
the  owners  took  one-quarter  to  three-eighths  of  the  net 
proceeds,  and  the  rest  was  divided  among  the  crew  in 
proportion  to  the  amount  each  man  caught.  In  mack- 
erel-fishing it  made  a  great  difference  from  what  part 
of  the  vessel  one  fished ;  hence  every  man's  station  was 
allotted  beforehand. 

Codfishermen  received,  in  addition,  a  bonus  of  eight 
to  ten  dollars  a  year  from  the  federal  government.  A 
Gloucester  physician  stirred  up  a  tempest  in  1840, 
when  he  exposed  methods  by  which  mackerel-fisher- 

*  Illustrated  by  the  "Settlement "  of  one  trip  of  the  Wellfleet  mackerel 
schooner  Boundbrook  in  1843.  The  "whole  stock"  was  sold  for  $836.11. 
Outfitter's  bill  was  $83.92,  and  the  "great  general"  (food  furnished  by 
owners),  $87.65.  The  owners'  share  —  25  per  cent  of  the  "whole  stock" 
after  these  items  were  deducted  —  was  $166.13.  Eleven  members  of 
the  crew  divided  the  rest,  the  lowest  share  being  $18.78.  The  skipper 
and  two  others  got  $54.09  apiece. 

310 


A  CAPE  COD  SHIPMASTER  AND  HIS  HOME 

Captain  Caleb  Sprague,  Master  of  Ship  North  Bend  and  Clipper  Ship 
Gravina,  and  his  Cottage  at  Barnstable 


CAPE  COD  AND  CAPE  ANN 

men  became  codfishermen  for  bounty-getting  pur- 
poses. But  by  constantly  reiterating  the  "nursery 
of  our  seamen"  and  "cradle  of  the  American  Navy" 
argument,  Massachusetts  congressmen  managed  to 
retain  the  federal  bounty  until  1866.  There  is  no 
doubt  that  the  men  needed  it.  The  average  earnings 
of  a  Gloucester  fisherman,  for  the  working  year  of  nine 
months,  were  estimated  at  one  hundred  and  fifty- 
seven  dollars  in  1850.  A  fair-sized  Cape  Cod  fisher- 
man's family  needed  a  hundred  dollars  more  than  that 
to  carry  it  through  the  winter,  and  the  maximum  ever 
made  by  a  lucky  fisherman  in  a  banner  year  was  only 
eight  to  nine  hundred  dollars.  Their  calling  was  most 
dangerous.  Seventy-eight  men  of  the  Cape  Cod  fleet 
were  drowned  in  1837.  Truro,  Dennis,  and  Yarmouth 
lost  eighty-seven  bread-winners  in  the  October  gale 
of  1841,  which  swept  away  the  new  Sandy  Bay  break- 
water on  Cape  Ann,  and  destroyed  fourteen  out  of 
sixteen  vessels  owned  at  Pigeon  Cove,  representing  a 
lifetime's  savings  of  many  hard-working  men.  Eleven 
vessels  from  Marblehead,  with  sixty-five  men  and 
boys,  went  down  in  the  September  gale  of  1846;  and 
the  "Minot's  Light"  gale  of  October,  1851,  took  a 
fearful  toll  from  every  fishing  village  in  New  England. 
Except  in  the  shoemaking  region,  a  season's  gains  were 
generally  used  up  by  the  spring,  and  a  fisherman's 
family  lived  on  credit  in  his  absence.  Bad  luck  or  mis- 
fortune would  prolong  the  debt  to  the  vessel's  owner 
or  the  local  storekeeper  (often  the  same  person),  in- 
definitely. But  on  the  whole,  especially  on  the  North 
Shore  and  Cape  Cod,  the  fishermen  seem  to  have  been 
a  much  happier  and  more  independent  class  of  sea- 
farers than  the  whalemen  or  merchant  sailors. 

The  decade  1850-1860  marks  the  end  of  an  era  in 
the  Massachusetts  fisheries.   On  the  cod  banks,  dory 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

hand-lining  and  trawling  commenced.  Mackerel-fish- 
ing was  revolutionized  by  the  purse  seine;  and  the 
clipper  fishing  schooner  was  perfected.  Gloucester  in- 
itiated and  reaped  the  benefit  of  these  modern  im- 
provements. Her  branch  railroad,  connecting  her  with 
Boston  in  1846,  attracted  buyers  from  all  parts  of  the 
country.  Her  vessel  owners,  commanding  more  capital 
than  the  Cape-Codders,  and  living  in  one  compact 
community,  were  better  able  to  survive  years  of  bad 
luck  and  disaster,  more  prompt  to  scrap  obsolete  ves- 
sels, and  to  adopt  new  methods.  Isaac  Higgins,  of 
Gloucester,  invented  the  modern  seine  boat,  a  model 
which  no  other  builder  to  this  day  has  been  able  to 
improve.  The  Canadian  Reciprocity  Treaty  of  1854, 
notwithstanding  the  competition  of  Canadian  fish, 
restored  access  to  the  inshore  "Bay"  fisheries,  and 
permitted  free  import  of  Newfoundland  herring  for 
bait.  Foreign  immigrants  settled  in  Gloucester  in 
large  numbers ;  and  by  the  close  of  the  Civil  War,  it  was 
by  far  the  greatest  fishing  town  in  America,  with  a 
fleet  of  three  hundred  and  forty-one  cod  and  mack- 
erel schooners,  a  tonnage  greater  than  Salem's,  and 
an  annual  catch  worth  almost  three  million  dollars. 
Gloucester,  too,  has  been  afflicted  (or  blessed,  if  you 
like)  with  factories  and  summer  visitors;  but  Glouces- 
ter still  farms  the  sea.  Her  population  of  twenty-four 
thousand,  in  1920,  depends  largely  on  the  sacred  cod 
and  his  humbler  cousins. 

For  Cape  Cod,  however,  the  decade  1850-1860 
marks  a  decline  both  in  population  and  maritime 
activity.  Various  are  the  explanations.  Her  capitalist 
class  was  too  small,  poor,  and  conservative  to  adopt 
the  new  methods.  Modern  purse-seining  required 
strong  men,  giving  no  employment  to  the  boys  who 
were  useful  in  jigging.  Lack  of  rail  transportation 

312 


CAPE  COD  AND  CAPE  ANN 

(although  the  Old  Colony  Railroad  did  finally  wander 
into  Provincetown  in  1873)  gave  the  profits  of  dis- 
tribution to  Boston  wholesalers.  After  the  Civil  War 
the  Cape  Cod  fleet  began  to  concentrate  in  Wellfleet 
and  Provincetown.  Elsewhere  wise  men  imitated 
Captain  Zebina  H.  Small,  of  Harwich,  who  sold  his 
fishing  vessel  in  1845  and  set  out  a  cranberry  bog. 
Others  emigrated  to  Boston,  New  York,  and  the  West, 
where  the  sturdy  qualities  of  their  salty  upbringing 
helped  many  to  acquire  fortunes,  and  summer  estates 
on  Cape  Cod. 


CHAPTER  XX 

THE  WHALERS 
1815-1860 

0  the  whaleman's  joys!  O  I  cruise  my  old  cruise  again! 

1  feel  the  ship's  motion  under  me,  I  feel  the  Atlantic  breezes  fanning 

me, 

I  hear  the  cry  again  sent  down  from  the  mast-head,  There  —  she 
blows! 

—  Again  I  spring  up  the  rigging  to  look  with  the  rest  —  We  see  — 

we  descend,  wild  with  excitement, 

I  leap  in  the  lower'd  boat  —  We  row  toward  our  prey,  where  he  lies, 
We  approach  stealthy  and  silent  —  I  see  the  mountainous  mass, 

lethargic,  basking, 
I  see  the  harpooner  standing  up  —  I  see  the  weapon  dart  from  his 

vigorous  arm : 

0  swift,  again,  now,  far  out  in  the  ocean,  the  wounded  whale,  settling, 

running  to  windward,  tows  me, 

—  Again  I  see  him  rise  to  breathe  —  We  row  close  again, 

1  see  a  lance  driven  through  his  side,  press'd  deep,  turn'd  in  the 

wound, 
Again  we  back  off  —  I  see  him  settle  again  —  the  life  is  leaving  him 

fast, 
As  he  rises  he  spouts  blood  —  I  see  him  swim  in  circles  narrower 

and  narrower,  swiftly  cutting  the  water  —  I  see  him  die; 
He  gives  one  convulsive  leap  in  the  centre  of  the  circle,  and  then 

falls  flat  and  still  in  the  bloody  foam. 

—  WALT  WHITMAN,  "Song  of  Joys" 

WHEN  Boston  absorbed  the  foreign  commerce  of  Mas- 
sachusetts, New  Bedford  became  the  whaling  me- 
tropolis of  the  world.  Nantucket,  after  losing  half 
her  fleet  of  forty-six  whalers  during  the  war,  began  to 
recover  in  1818.  By  the  end  of  another  year  she  had  a 
fleet  of  sixty  whalers,  and  fourscore  sail  in  the  coasting 
trade  as  well.  In  1843,  the  peak  year  of  her  population 


THE  WHALERS 

and  prosperity,  Nantucket  had  nine  thousand  souls, 
seventy-five  hundred  sheep,  eighty-eight  whalers,  and 
the  largest  output  of  refined  oil  and  sperm  candles  of 
any  American  community.  With  a  high  school,  an 
Athenaeum,  and  a  Lyceum;  Nantucket,  for  all  her  pris- 
tine simplicity,  had  caught  the  cultural  waves  from 
'off-island.'  But  her  whalemen,  by  following  a  mis- 
taken policy  of  sperm  or  nothing,  ran  out  of  luck. 
Vessels  had  to  be  floated  over  the  harbor  bar  on 
'camels,'  at  great  expense.  Population  and  fleet  be- 
gan to  taper  down.  The  last  forlorn  whaling  barque 
sailed  from  Nantucket  in  1870,  but  in  the  summer  of 
1920  the  eighty-year-old  Charles  W.  Morgan  of  New 
Bedford  was  bravely  fitting  out  for  another  voyage. 

"  New  Bedford  is  not  nearer  to  the  whales  than  New 
London  or  Portland,"  wrote  Emerson,  "yet  they  have 
all  the  equipments  for  a  whaler  ready,  and  they  hug 
an  oil-cask  like  a  brother."  He  guessed  the  secret  of 
New  Bedford's  success.  Her  spacious  harbor,  in  con- 
trast to  the  bar-blocked  entrance  to  Nantucket;  her 
mainland  situation,  and  her  railroad  connections 
counted  for  much;  but  her  persistent  specialization  in 
whaling  alone,  counted  most.  Other  small  seaports  of 
New  England  hugged  the  delusion  that  foreign  trade 
would  return ;  New  Bedford  hugged  her  oil-casks.  Her 
Quaker  shipowners  who  had  made  fortunes  by  neutral 
trading  before  1812,  perceived  that  the  palmy  days  of 
the  carrying  trade  were  past,  refitted  their  merchant- 
men as  whalers,  and  went  out  after  oil  with  a  spirit  and 
perseverance  that  made  their  town  within  six  years 
the  first  whaling  port  of  North  America.  They  were 
as  tight-fisted,  cruel  and  ruthless  a  set  of  exploiters  as 
you  can  find  in  American  history,  these  oil  kings  of 
New  Bedford.  But  they  were  canny  as  well.  By  in- 
telligent specialization  they  escaped  the  commercial 

315 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

extinction  that  overtook  the  smaller  Massachusetts 
seaports ;  and  instead  of  awaiting  the  inevitable  decline 
of  whaling,  they  chose  the  very  height  of  its  prosperity 
to  give  a  new  hostage  to  fortune  —  the  Wamsutta 
cotton-mill. 

Fairhaven,  on  the  opposite  side  of  New  Bedford 
Harbor,  became  the  third  whaling  center  by  1831, 
although  later  passed  by  New  London.  Edgartown 
on  the  Vineyard  had  a  fleet  of  ten  to  twenty  whalers 
in  the  forties  and  fifties,  and  Provincetown  at  one 
time  had  as  many  as  thirty.  Every  little  seaport  on 
Buzzard's  Bay  —  Dartmouth  and  Mattapoisett  and 
Marion,  Wareham  and  Westport,  Wood's  Hole  and 
Rochester  —  entered  the  game.  In  fact  there  were 
few  seaports  of  Massachusetts  and  Long  Island  Sound 
that  did  not  at  one  time  or  another  go  in  for  blubber- 
hunting  ;  but  all  north  of  Cape  Cod  gave  it  up  after  a 
short  trial.  New  Bedford's  fleet  surpassed  all  others 
combined,  attaining  three  hundred  and  thirty  vessels 
in  1857.  The  population  of  four  thousand  in  1820  had 
tripled  by  1840,  and  almost  doubled  again  in  the  next 
twenty  years.  With  its  oil  refineries,  cooper's  shops, 
tool-works,  and  the  hundred-and-one  industries  sub- 
sidiary to  whaling,  New  Bedford  became  a  hive  of 
industry;  it  was  the  fifth  port  for  shipping  in  the 
United  States,  and  was  pushing  Baltimore  hard  for 
fourth  place. 

The  historic  process  of  opening  new  whaling  grounds 
continued.  By  1821  there  were  five  recognized  grounds 
in  the  Pacific  Ocean  —  the  '  on-shore '  along  the  coast 
of  Chile,  the  'off-shore'  between  5°  and  10°  south  lati- 
tude and  longitude  IO5°-I25°  west,  discovered  by 
Captain  George  W.  Gardner,  of  Nan  tucket,  in  1818; 
the  'country  whaling,'  among  the  Pacific  reefs  and 
islands;  the  Indian  Ocean;  and  the  coast  of  Japan, 


THE  WHALERS 

which  was  first  visited  in  1820  by  Captain  Joseph 
Allen,  of  Nantucket,  following  a  tip  from  Jonathan 
Winship,  the  Boston  Nor'westman.  In  1835,  when 
Captain  Barzillai  T.  Folger,  of  the  Nantucket  ship 
Ganges,  took  the  first  right  whale  on  the  Kodiak 
ground,  the  vessels  extended  their  cruising  grounds  to 
the  Northwest  Coast  and  Alaska.  Eight  years  later 
two  New  Bedford  masters  discovered  the  value  of  the 
bowhead  whale  off  the  coast  of  Kamchatka;  and  by 
1851  Melville  could  write  with  truth  that  the  oil  fleet 
of  Massachusetts  was  "penetrating  even  through 
Bering's  Strait,  and  into  the  remotest  secret  drawers 
and  lockers  of  the  world."  l 

A  summer's  cruise  in  the  Arctic  Ocean  gave  the 
keenest  delight  to  owners  and  skippers,  as  the  mid- 
night sun  enabled  them  to  work  their  crews  twenty- 
four  hours  a  day. 

When  in  1839  sperm-oil  rose  above  a  dollar  a  gallon 
for  the  first  time  since  the  war,  Nantucket  increased 
her  fleet  from  sixty-four  to  eighty-one  vessels,  New 
Bedford  and  Fairhaven  from  eighty-nine  to  two  hun- 
dred and  twenty-one,  and  others  in  proportion.  Yet 
the  price  of  oil  and  bone,  after  a  brief  depression,  rose 
to  unheard-of  figures  during  this  golden  age  of  the  in- 
dustry—  $1-77  for  sperm  and  79  cents  for  whale-oil 
in  1855-56,  97  cents  a  pound  for  whalebone;  although 
two  millions  and  a  half  pounds  were  landed  that  year 
as  against  twenty  thousand  in  1817,  when  the  price 
was  twelve  cents.  By  1840  half  a  million  gallons  of 
sperm-oil,  four  and  a  half  million  of  whale-oil,  and  two 
million  pounds  of  bone  were  exported  from  the  United 
States.  Whaling  and  the  manufacture  of  whaling 
products  became  the  leading  industry  in  Massachu- 

1  Moby  Dick,  chap.  cv.  All  other  quotations  in  this  chapter  are  from 
the  same  whaling  classic. 

317 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

setts  after  shoes  and  cottons,  and  provided  commerce 
with  an  important  export  medium.1 

Little  technical  advance  seems  to  have  been  made 
at  this  period.  A  toggle  harpoon  that  locked  the  iron 
in  the  whale's  back  came  into  general  use.  The  barque 
rig  became  popular  for  whaling  vessels,  which  now 
averaged  between  three  hundred  and  five  hundred 
tons  burthen ;  but  little  if  any  improvement  was  made 
in  the  model.  'Spouters,'  or  'blubber- boilers,'  as  the 
merchant  marine  called  them,  were  still  broad  on  the 
beam,  bluff-bowed,  and  "sailed  about  as  fast  as  you 
can  whip  a  toad  through  tar."  Capacity,  not  speed, 
was  the  desired  quality;  hence  many  ships  which  had 
outlived  their  usefulness  in  the  merchant  service  were 
converted  into  whalers.  The  whaleboats  (rowboats  car- 
ried aboard  the  whalers,  and  used  to  chase  the  quarry) 
were  beautiful  craft,  perfected  by  a  century  of  ex- 
perience. Double-ended,  twenty-eight  to  thirty  feet 
long,  six  feet  broad,  and  but  twenty-six  inches  deep 
amidships,  with  half-inch  cedar  planking  on  white-oak 
.frames,  propelled  by  a  spritsail  or  by  five  stout  four- 
teen- to  eighteen-foot  oars,  "like  noiseless  nautilus 
shells  their  light  prows  sped  through  the  sea."  For  a 
nautical  thriller  give  us  a  fifteen-knot  "Nantucket 
sleigh-ride"  over  great  Pacific  rollers,  in  a  whaleboat 
fastened  onto  a  gallied  whale,  steersman  straining  on 
his  twenty-two-foot  oar  to  prevent  an  upset,  and  the 
line  smoking  as  it  whips  around  the  loggerhead.  No 
wonder  that  Hawaiian  royalty,  in  its  pageants,  used  a 
New  Bedford  whaleboat  for  triumphal  car. 

1  A  good  part,  but  not  all  of  the  oil  was  handled  by  Massachusetts 
merchants.  Charles  W.  Morgan,  of  New  Bedford,  sent  part  of  his 
cargoes  to  his  brother  Thomas  W.  Morgan  at  Philadelphia,  part  to 
Josiah  Bradlee,  of  Boston,  and  part  to  Hussey  &  Macy,  a  Nantucket 
firm  in  New  York.  He  also  exported  oil  in  his  own  vessels  to  Europe, 
and  imported  cargoes  of  general  merchandise. 

318 


THE  WHALERS 

It  was  a  golden  age  for  owners.  The  ship  Lagoda, 
belonging  to  Jonathan  Bourne  and  others,  netted  them 
an  average  of  ninety-eight  per  cent  profit  for  each  of 
the  six  voyages  she  made  between  1841  and  i860.1 
Several  simple  Quaker  families  of  1815  had  become 
millionaires  by  1840.  The  nucleus  of  the  great  How- 
land  and  Hetty  Green  fortunes  was  gathered  in  1824, 
when  Isaac  Howland,  Jr.,  died.  Stately  mansions  of 
granite  in  the  neo-classic  style,  and  elaborate  Gothic 
cottages,  arose  on  the  high  ground  overlooking  the 
harbor,  amid  ample  lawns  and  luxuriant  gardens.  New 
Bedford  society  combined  the  grace  of  provincial 
Newburyport  and  the  power  of  Federalist  Salem. . . . 
But  it  was  an  iron  age  for  the  men  who  did  the  work. 

Whaling  skippers  had  been  proverbial  for  cruelty 
and  whale-ship  owners  for  extortion,  since  colonial 
days;  but  the  generation  of  1830-60  surpassed  its 
forbears.  The  old  'lay'  system,  it  will  be  remembered, 
gave  each  whaleman  a  fractional  share  of  the  proceeds 
of  the  voyage.  On  paper,  this  sounds  so  fair  and  just 
that  a  gullible  economic  historian  has  called  it  "the 
best  cooperation  of  capital,  capitalizer,  and  laborer 
ever  accomplished."  Yet  by  1830,  if  not  earlier,  this 
cooperation  had  been  perverted  into  a  foul  system  of 
exploitation. 

In  the  first  place,  the  dividend  of  a  voyage  was 
usually  computed  not  on  what  the  cargo  fetched,  but 
on  oil  prices  fixed  by  the  owner  in  advance,  at  a  rate 
well  below  the  market  price,  which  was  constantly 

1  These  voyages  ranged  in  length  between  two  and  four  years.  On 
her  next  voyages,  during  the  Civil  War,  the  Lagoda  netted  her  owners 
219  and  363  per  cent  profit.  The  average  cost  of  a  whaler,  fitted  for  sea, 
was  estimated  in  1841  at  $20,120,  of  which  about  half  was  the  value  of 
the  vessel  and  the  other  half  outfit.  The  Lagoda's  cost  of  fitting  out  came 
very  close  to  this  average.  She  measured  107'  6"  X  26'  9"  X  18'  4",  371 
tons. 

319 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 


tending  upward.  The  'lay'  or  proportion  of  the 
catch  granted  an  able  seaman  declined  to  one-seventy- 
fifth  or  one-ninety-fifth,  and  that  of  a  green  hand  to 
one-one-hundred-and-fiftieth,  one-two-hundredth,  or  as 
little  as  ignorant  men  could  be  induced  to  take.  Divide 
fifty  to  seventy-five  thousand  dollars,  a  high  average 
yield  for  a  voyage  at  this  period,  by  175,  and  you  get 
$285.72  to  $428.57;  a  green  hand's  gross  compensa- 
tion for  three  to  four  years'  labor  at  sea.1  Even  this 

1  The  following  account  of  a  voyage  of  the  New  Bedford  whaling  ship 
Benjamin  Tucker  between  1839  and  1843  is  fairly  typical  of  a  number  I 
have  seen  in  the  New  Bedford  public  library.  Accounts  of  men  who  did 
not  complete  the  voyage  are  omitted. 


Lay 

Share  of 
proceeds  of 
voyage 

Charged  for 
outfit,  plus 
25  per  cent 

Captain's 
bill  (slop- 
chest,  and 
advances  of 
spending 
money) 

Captain   

1/16 

»/   1W 

$2358.75 

First  Mate  

1/24. 

1  572.  SO 

2d         "  

»/**» 

1/43 

IO23.Q5 

•id         " 

1/65 

677.38 

4th        "     

1/78 

564.4.8 

Boat  steerer  

1/87 

5O6.OQ 

38.08 

Boat  steerer  

1/95 

4.6^.47 

74.36 

64.12 

«         ii 

*"?,•*' 

82.03 

II                  <! 

II 

ii 

90.68 

Cook  

I  /I  SO 

203.83 

90.00 

123.48 

Seaman  

I/I7O 

259.OO 

21.  OO 

66.02 

« 

36.4O 

52.12 

ii 

1/160 

275.12 

IO7.OO 

76.66 

Landsman  

I/IOO 

231.7'* 

IO7.57 

63.46 

it 

'  <Y^ 

IOO.7O 

76.IO 

In  addition,  each  man  had  charged  against  him  the  above-mentioned 
fees  for  fitting  out,  discharging  cargo,  and  medicine  chest;  but  no  in- 
surance. The  two  landsmen  and  the  last  seaman  left  the  ship  owing  the 
owners  money,  at  the  end  of  this  four-year  voyage.  After  another  voy- 
age on  the  same  ship,  one  green  hand  was  paid  off  with  $1.31*  and 
another  with  $16. 

320 


THE  WHALERS 

beggarly  sum  was  begrudged  him  by  the  owners,  who 
devised  various  means  to  rob  him  thereof.  On  many 
ships  ten  per  cent  was  deducted  for  'leakage,'  and 
three  per  cent  for  insurance;  yet  if  the  ship  and  cargo 
were  lost,  all  the  insurance  money  went  to  the  owners. 
Certain  owners  charged  against  each  lay  the  value  of 
the  casks,  and  a  commission  for  selling  the  oil,  in 
spite  of  judicial  decisions  against  the  legality  of  such 
practice.  Each  whaleman  was  charged  eight  to  ten 
dollars  for  fitting  out,  and  the  same  for  discharging 
the  vessel ;  and  a  dollar  and  a  half  for  his  share  of  the 
medicine  chest.  For  his  'expenses'  and  'outfit,'  some 
'land-shark'  outfitter  at  New  Bedford  was  given  a 
good  round  sum,  on  which  the  owners  charged  the  men 
twenty- five  per  cent  interest;  and  the  'slop-chest* 
absorbed  a  good  part  of  the  rest. 

This  slop-chest  was  the  skipper's  store,  from  which 
the  men  replenished  their  tattered  garments  and  empty 
tobacco  pouches  at  a  high  advance  on  cost.1  It  existed 
on  merchantmen  as  well.  But  on  many  whalers  the 
only  way  for  a  man  to  get  spending  money  at  Fayal 
or  Honolulu  or  Papeete  was  to  buy  slops  at  inflated 
prices  and  sell  them  ashore  for  a  song.  Consequently 

1  Verbal  tradition,  and  some  of  the  authorities  mentioned  in  the 
Bibliography,  state  that  several  hundred  per  cent  profit  was  made  by 
the  slop-chest.  In  the  ship's  disbursement  accounts  I  have  examined, 
the  profits  were  fairly  reasonable,  judged  by  1921  standards.  Here  are 
some  extracts  from  the  'slop-chest  invoice'  of  the  Benjamin  Tucker: 

Cost  Sell  at 

Monkey  jackets $6.50  $10.00 

Trousers 2.40  4.00 

Guernsey  frocks 87  1.50 

Scotch  caps 37  .62 

Jack-knives I&-.29  4O-.5O 

Tobacco,  Ib 16  .25 

The  slop-chest  was  also  used  in  trading  with  natives  for  supplies,  and 
contained  bolts  of  cheap  cottons,  and  other  merchandise  for  this  especial 
purpose. 

321 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

many  whaling  ships  returned  to  New  Bedford  after 
a  cruise  of  several  years,  with  every  green  hand's  'lay* 
eaten  up  by  his  debts  to  the  ship. 

Except  for  the  boat-steerers  or  harpooners,  who 
lived  apart  from  the  common  sailors  and  had  a  'lay' 
that  netted  them  something,  whaling  vessels  did  not 
ship  seamen.  Neither  American  seamen  nor  any  other 
kind  would  have  stood  for  the  extortion  and  cruelty 
practiced  by  owners  and  skippers.  Shipping  agents, 
with  offices  in  New  York,  Boston,  and  inland  cities 
like  Buffalo,  circulated  lurid  handbills  depicting  the 
'excitement  of  the  chase  and  the  fat  profits  of  a  voyage. 
Their  principal  victims  were  farmer  boys  from  New 
England  and  New  York,  bitten  with  the  lure  of  the 
sea.  Unemployed  immigrants  and  mill-hands,  fugi- 
tives from  justice,  and  human  derelicts  were  also  drawn 
in.  Many  are  the  stories  of  old-time  whaling  agents. 
If  a  raw  rustic  protested  against  the  size  of  his  lay,  the 
agent  would  magnanimously  grant  him  one-two- 
hundred-and-seventy-fifth  instead  of  one-hundred- 
and-seventy-fifth.  A  well-known  Boston  agent,  after 
describing  to  a  Maine  ploughboy  the  imaginary  joys 
of  this  glorious  profession,  concluded  confidentially: 
"  Now,  Hiram,  I  '11  be  honest  with  yer.  When  yer  out  in 
the  boats  chasin'  whales,  yer  git  yer  mince-pie  cold!" 

During  the  first  months  of  a  whaling  voyage  the 
green  hands  were  'learned '  the  ropes  with  a  rope's  end, 
taught  to  row  the  whaleboats,  and  broken  in  generally. 
Their  numbers  were  increased  by  a  few  hungry  and 
docile  'Portygees'  at  Fayal  or  St.  lago,  where  the 
whaling  vessels  touched  to  trade  liquor  for  fresh  pro- 
visions and  to  ship  home  the  oil  obtained  on  the  pas- 
sage across.1  This  led  to  an  extensive  migration  from 

1  "We  are  in  advance  to  all  your  crew  from  70  to  80  dollars,  it  will 
therefore  be  necessary  to  obtain  some  oil  before  going  into  port  as  they 

322 


y^^c~> 

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xSWi/fc/ 


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K  s2&~.  &&^&~  <tf£^;*  f%£j5rs#g 


c# 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  WHALER  ISABELLA  OF  NEW  BEDFORD 


THE  WHALERS 

the  Azores  and  Cape  Verde  Islands  to  New  Bedford, 
until  to-day  the  Western  Islanders  and  Bravas  are 
the  most  numerous  alien  element  in  the  Old  Colony, 
and  in  parts  of  it  the  sole  cultivators  of  the  soil. 

Whaling  vessels  never  returned  to  New  Bedford  or 
Nantucket  with  the  same  crew  that  they  shipped. 
Many  whalemen  deserted  their  floating  hells  in  the 
Pacific  Islands.  Those  who  kept  out  of  debt  to  the 
ship  .were  encouraged  to  desert,  or  abandoned  no 
frivolous  pretexts,  in  defiance  of  the  law,  that  their 
lays  might  be  forfeited.1  And  once  a  Pacific  beach- 
comber, a  man  seldom  became  anything  better.  A 
United  States  consul  in  the  Pacific  estimated  in  1859 
that  three  or  four  thousand  young  men  were  annually 
lost  to  their  country  through  this  channel.  To  replace 
them,  Kanakas,  Tongatabooars,  Filipinos,  and  even 
Fiji  cannibals  like  Melville's  hero  Queequeg,  were 
signed  on  for  a  nominal  wage  or  microscopic  lay. 
Whaling  vessels  no  longer  returned  as  soon  as  their 
holds  were  full;  a  cargo  would  be  shipped  home  by 
merchant  vessels  from  Honolulu,  and  the  voyage  pro- 
longed until  the  old  hooker  crawled  around  the  Horn 
with  a  yard  of  weed  on  her  bottom  and  a  crew  that 
looked  like  shipwrecked  mariners. 

These  three-  and  four-year  voyages,2  touching  at 

may  be  likely  to  desert  —  in  which  case  we  are  losers."  (Charles  W. 
Morgan's  instructions  to  Capt.  Charles  Downs  of  the  barque  President, 
"4th  mo.,  23d,  1830.")  The  captain  of  another  whaler  is  instructed  not 
to  stop  at  the  Westward  Islands,  as  $100  or  more  has  been  expended  for 
each  whaleman's  'outfit.' 

1  The  most  impressive  fact  in  the  ship's  disbursement  accounts  I 
have  examined  is  the  large  number  of  men  who  deserted  at  outlandish 
ports,  although  money  was  coming  to  them.  If  a  deserter  was  appre- 
hended, the  local  police  fees  were  charged  up  to  him,  with  25  per  cent 
interest  to  boot. 

1  The  average  voyage  of  fifty-two  sperm  whalers  and  fifty  right 
whalers  which  returned  in  1847,  was  respectively  forty-five  months, 
twelve  days,  and  thirty-one  months,  seven  days. 

323 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

no  civilized  port,  brought  out  the  worst  traits  of  hu- 
man nature.  Whalers'  forecastles  were  more  efficient 
schools  of  vice  than  reformatories.  Brutality  from 
officers  to  men  was  the  rule.  Many  whaling  skippers, 
who  on  shore  passed  as  pious  friends  or  church- 
members,  were  cold-blooded,  heartless  fiends  on  the 
quarterdeck.  Then,  having  made  conditions  such  that 
no  decent  American  would  knowingly  ship  on  a  whaler, 
the  blubber  barons  used  the  character  of  the  crews 
they  obtained  as  an  argument  for  still  harsher  dis- 
cipline. Men  were  hazed  until  they  deserted,  became 
cringing  beasts,  or  mutinied.  The  ingenuity  of  whaling 
skippers  in  devising  devilish  punishments  surpasses 
belief.  Nor  should  one  forget  other  ways  in  which 
these  blackguards  degraded  the  flag  and  the  name  of 
America.  "  Paying  with  the  foretopsail"  (sailing  away 
without  paying)  was  frequently  practiced  on  Pacific 
islanders  who  had  furnished  supplies.  The  numerous 
conflicts  between  whalemen  and  natives  were  generally 
due  to  the  meanness  and  rascality  of  skippers.  Another 
practice,  by  no  means  uncommon  at  New  Bedford  and 
the  Sound  ports,  was  to  fit  out  a  whaler  for  a  slaving 
voyage,  unbeknown  to  the  crew.  As  late  as  1861  the 
owners  of  two  New  Bedford  barques  were  condemned 
to  hard  labor  in  jail  for  slave- trading. 

Whaling,  after  all,  was  better  than  most  systems  of 
peonage  that  flourish  to-day,  for  it  released  its  victims 
after  a  single  voyage.  Rarely,  if  a  green  hand  made 
good  with  the  skipper,  he  could  be  able  seaman  or 
boat-steerer  (harpooner)  on  his  second  voyage;  but 
the  good  '  short  lays '  were  generally  reserved  for  na- 
tive Nantucketers,  New  Bedfordites,  and  Gay  Head 
Indians.  Compensations  there  were,  even  in  a  whale- 
man's life.  If  his  vessel  ran  into  several  'pods'  of 
whales  in  succession,  he  was  worked  until  he  dropped, 

324 


THE  WHALERS 

and  then  kicked  to  his  feet;  but  ordinarily  he  had 
plenty  of  leisure  to  play  cards  and  smoke,  and  to 
carve  sperm  whales'  teeth  into  marvelous  'scrimshaw 
work'  and  'jagging  wheels.'  There  was  nothing  in 
the  merchant  marine  corresponding  to  the  friendly 
'gams'  or  visits  between  whalers  at  sea;  half  the  offi- 
cers and  crew  of  each  vessel  spending  several  hours, 
even  the  whole  night,  aboard  the  other.1  But  the 
great  redeeming  feature  of  whaling  was  the  sport  of  it. 

"There  she  blows!  —  there  she  breaches!"  from  the 
masthead  lookout,  was  a  magic  formula  that  exalted 
this  sordid,  cruel  business  to  an  inspiring  game;  a 
game  that  made  the  rawest  greenie  a  loyal  team-mate 
of  the  hardest  officer.  First  there  was  the  bustle  of 
sending  away  the  boats,  then  the  long,  hard  pull  to 
the  quarry,  each  of  the  four  mates  exhorting  his  crew 
with  picturesque  epithets  to  win  the  race:  "Sing  out 
and  say  something,  my  hearties.  Roar  and  pull,  my 
thunder- bolts!  Beach  me,  beach  me  on  their  black 
backs,  boys ;  only  do  that  for  me,  and  I  '11  sign  over  to 
you  my  Martha's  Vineyard  plantation,  boys;  including 
wife  and  children,  boys!  Lay  me  on  —  lay  me  on!  O 
Lord,  Lord!  but  I  shall  go  stark,  staring  mad!  See! 
See  that  white  water!"  The  rowers'  backs  are  to  the 
whale,  it  is  bad  form  to  glance  around,  they  know  not 
how  near  they  are  until  the  mate  shouts  to  the  bow 
oar,  the  harpooner,  "Stand,  up,  and  let  him  have  it!" 
A  shock  as  bow  grounds  on  blubber,  a  frantic  " Starn 
all!"  and  the  death  duel  begins. 

Anything  may  happen  then.  At  best,  a  Nantucket 
sleighride,  waves  rushing  past  the  whaleboats  with 
a  "surging,  hollow  roar . . .  like  gigantic  bowls  in  a 

1  "Endeavor  to  avoid  those  [ships]  that  wish  to  spend  much  time  in 
gamming  —  as  a  lone  chance  is  generally  best,"  writes  Charles  R. 
Tucker,  owner,  to  Captain  Charles  Starbuck  in  1836. 

325 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

boundless  bowling-green;  the  brief  suspended  agony 
of  the  boat,  as  it  would  tip  for  an  instant  on  the  knife- 
like  edge  of  the  sharper  waves,  that  almost  seemed 
threatening  to  cut  it  in  two;  the  sudden  profound  dip 
into  the  watery  glens  and  hollows;  the  keen  spurrings 
and  goadings  to  gain  the  top  of  the  opposite  hill;  the 
headlong,  sled-like  slide  down  its  other  side; .  .  .  the 
cries  of  the  headsmen  and  harpooners,  and  the  shud- 
dering gasps  of  the  oarsmen,  with  the  wondrous  sight 
of  the  ivory  Pequod  bearing  down  upon  her  boats  with 
outstretched  sails,  like  a  wild  hen  after  her  screaming 
brood."  Finally  the  whale  slows  down,  exhausted, 
and  the  crew  pull  up  on  him,  hand  over  hand  on  the 
line,  and  dispatch  him  with  a  few  well-timed  thrusts; 
then  pull  quickly  out  of  his  death-flurry.  At  worst,  a 
canny  old  'sparm'  sinks  out  of  sight,  rises  with  open 
jaws,  directly  under  the  boat,  and  shoots  with  it 
twenty  feet  into  the  air,  crushing  its  sides  like  an  egg- 
shell, while  the  crew  jump  for  their  lives  into  seething, 
blood-streaked  foam. 

Whalemen  enjoyed  a  variety  of  adventures  such  as 
no  other  calling  approached,  such  as  no  millionaire 
big-game  hunter  of  to-day  can  command.  "Not  the 
raw  recruit,  marching  from  the  bosom  of  his  wife  into 
the  fever  heat  of  his  first  battle;  not  the  dead  man's 
ghost  encountering  the  first  unknown  phantom  in  the 
other  world ;  —  neither  of  these  can  feel  stranger  and 
stronger  emotions  than  that  man  does,  who  for  the 
first  time  finds  himself  pulling  into  the  charmed 
churned  circle  of  the  hunted  sperm  whale."  When 
that  moment  came,  no  braver  or  gamier  men  could 
be  found  on  blue  water,  than  the  whalemen  of  New 
England. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

OH!  CALIFORNIA 
1844-1850 

Oh!  Susannah,  darling,  take  your  ease, 
For  we  have  beat  the  clipper  fleet  — 
The  Sovereign  of  the  Seas. 

THUS  roared  in  lusty  chorus  one  hundred  seamen  on 
the  Boston  clipper  ship  Sovereign  of  the  Seas,  as  she 
sailed  through  Golden  Gate,  on  November  15,  1852. 
Before  her,  behind  a  hedge  of  spars  and  rigging, 
swarmed  a  hill  of  human  ants,  building  a  great  city 
where  ten  years  before  the  only  signs  of  human  life 
were  a  mission  village,  and  a  Boston  hide-drogher. 
The  refrain  of  that  old  popular  song,  the  anthem  of 
the  Argonauts,  resounds  through  the  clipper-ship  era 
of  maritime  Massachusetts. 

Imagine  a  Yankee  Rip  van  Winkle,  who  had  slept 
out  his  twenty  years  within  hailing  distance  of  the 
State  House  dome.  As  he  looked  about  him  in  1853 
the  most  astonishing  sight  would  be  —  not  the  rail- 
road, not  the  telegraph,  not  the  steamship  —  but  the 
clipper  ship.  During  the  last  half  of  his  sleep  there  had 
taken  place  the  greatest  revolution  in  naval  architec- 
ture since  the  days  of  Hawkins  and  Drake.  Below  in 
Boston  Harbor,  and  setting  sail  for  a  port  whose  name 
he  had  never  heard,  were  vessels  four  and  five  times 
as  large  as  any  he  had  ever  seen,  with  canvas  five  and 
six  times  the  utmost  area  that  the  old  Boston  East- 
Indiamen  dared  spread  to  the  lightest  air. 

Now,  before  we  relate  this  revolution,  a  paragraph 
of  definitions.  A  ship,  as  old-time  sailors  use  the  word, 

327 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

and  as  I  have  attempted  to  use  it  throughout  this 
book,  meant  a  full-rigged  ship,  a  three-masted  vessel 
with  square  sails  on  all  three  masts.  A  clipper  ship, 
as  distinguished  from  other  ships,  was  built  and  rigged 
with  a  view  to  speed,  rather  than  carrying  capacity  or 
economy.  Although  larger,  in  general,  than  the  older 
sailing  vessels,  it  was  the  model  and  the  rig  of  clipper 
ships  that  made  them  such,  not  their  size.  They  were 
sharper  in  the  ends,  longer  in  proportion  to  their 
breadth,  and  more  heavily  sparred  than  the  full- 
bodied,  bluff-bowed  ships  of  previous,  and  even  later 
generations.1  For  the  clipper  ship  came  all  at  once, 
and  fled  as  quickly  as  she  came.  There  had  been 
clipper  schooners  and  clipper  brigs  since  1812,  the 
term  "clipper"  connoting  speed  and  smartness;  but 
only  six  or  eight  clipper  ships  had  been  built  before 
1850.  Then  were  brought  forth,  like  so  many  Cythe- 
reas  arising  from  the  sea,  the  fairest  vessels  that  ever 
sailed,  to  meet  a  special  need  —  speed  to  California 
at  any  price  or  risk. 


About  1840  the  rate  of  increase  in  the  American 
merchant  marine  began  to  accelerate.  The  basic 
cause  was  ability  of  American  shipbuilders  and  ship- 
owners to  keep  pace  with  the  growing  wealth,  pros- 
perity, and  population  of  America.  In  1849  Parlia- 
ment repealed  the  Navigation  Acts,  thereby  throwing 
open  the  British  market  to  the  products  of  New 

1  Compare  in  the  accompanying  illustration  the  ship  Mary  Clover, 
a  non-clipper  built  in  the  clipper-ship  era,  with  the  clipper  ship  Wild 
Ranger;  or,  better  still,  visit  the  Peabody  Museum,  Salem,  and  compare 
the  half-models  of  the  Flying  Cloud  and  the  frigate  Constitution;  or  the 
Marine  Museum  at  the  Old  State  House,  Boston,  to  compare  models  of 
different  types. 

328 


SHIP  MARY  GLOVER 


CLIPPER  SHIP  WILD  RANGER 


OH!  CALIFORNIA 

England  shipyards.  At  the  same  time  the  China  trade 
was  prospering;  and  competition  between  the  ships  of 
Russell  &  Co.,  the  New  York  firms,  and  the  great 
British  houses,  to  market  the  new  teas,  stimulated 
shipbuilders. 

These  conditions  created  a  demand  for  more  ships, 
speedier  ships,  and  bigger  ships.  Samuel  Hall,  of 
East  Boston,  built  for  the  Forbes's  China  fleet  in 
1839  an  unusually  fast  ship  Akbar,  650  tons,  the  last 
word  of  the  Medford  type  of  1830.  New  York  build- 
ers knew  how  to  construct  the  larger  vessels  through 
their  experience  with  the  North  Atlantic  packets; 
but  the  merchants  wanted  something  more  than  size. 
Baltimore  builders  had  the  reputation  for  speed, 
through  their  clipper  schooners  and  brigs  of  the  long, 
low,  rakish  type  beloved  by  slavers,  pirates,  and 
novelists.  Samuel  Hall  had  successfully  copied  or 
adapted  their  lines  for  pilot  schooners,  fishing  schoon- 
ers, and  small  opium  clippers.  But  the  Baltimore  clip- 
per model  was  as  unsuitable  for  a  vessel  of  one  thou- 
sand tons,  as  would  be  a  cat-boat  model  for  a  fishing 
schooner.  For  centuries,  shipbuilders  had  maintained 
that  you  could  have  either  speed  or  burthen,  not  both; 
but  New  York  and  Boston  wanted  both,  and  they 
got  it. 

Although  Boston  carried  the  clipper  ship  to  its 
ultimate  perfection,  New  York  invented  the  type. 
John  W.  Griffeths,  chief  draughtsman  of  Smith  & 
Dimon,  produced  in  1845  the  Rainbow,  750  tons,  the 
first  extreme  clipper  ship.  Her  long,  fine  ends  and 
cross-section  like  a  flattened  V,  came  from  the  Balti- 
more clipper;  but  the  concave  lines  of  her  bow  above 
the  water-line,  a  characteristic  feature  of  the  clipper 
ships,  were  suggested  by  the  model  of  a  Singapore 
sampan  which  Captain  Bob  Waterman  brought  home. 

329 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

After  some  remarkable  passages  to  China,  the  Rain- 
bow's model  was  imitated  in  five  or  six  clipper  ships 
of  moderate  burthen,  built  at  New  York  between  1844 
and  1848.  As  yet  not  a  single  vessel  of  this  type  had 
been  launched  from  a  Massachusetts  yard.  But  the 
way  was  being  prepared. 

Donald  McKay,  born  of  Scots  stock  at  Shelburne, 
Nova  Scotia,  in  1810,  played  about  the  local  yards  as 
a  boy,  and  built  a  fishing  boat  with  his  brother  in  their 
early  teens.  Stimulated,  perhaps,  by  a  wandering 
Sam  Slick,  this  youthful '  blue-nose '  emigrated  to  New 
York,  obtained  employment  at  the  shipyard  of  Isaac 
Webb,  and  quickly  mastered  the  profession.  Luckily 
for  Massachusetts,  he  turned  eastward  again  at  the  age 
of  thirty,  when  he  was  ready  to  launch  out  as  a  mas- 
ter builder.  At  first  working  under  John  Currier,  Jr., 
a  leading  shipbuilder  of  Newburyport,  he  became  his 
partner  in  1841,  and  produced  for  New  York  order 
two  ships  which  proved  wonders  for  finish,  appearance, 
and  speed. 

In  1843  Enoch  Train,  a  Boston  merchant  in  the 
South  American  and  Baltic  trades,  decided  that  his 
city  must  have  a  line  of  Liverpool  sailing  packets.  He 
doubted  whether  any  New  England  yard  were  capable 
of  turning  one  out.  Meeting  by  chance  the  New  York 
owner  of  Donald  McKay's  first  ship,  he  heard  such 
praise  of  the  young  master  builder  of  Newburyport  as 
to  give  him  the  contract  for  his  first  packet.  When  he 
saw  the  Joshua  Bates,  this  pioneer  ship  of  his  new 
line,  glide  gracefully  into  the  Merrimac,  Enoch  Train 
recognized  the  genius  of  her  builder.  At  his  persuasion, 
and  backed  by  his  financial  influence,  McKay  estab- 
lished a  new  shipyard  at  East  Boston.  There  he 
built  in  rapid  succession,  the  Ocean  Monarch,1  Daniel 

1  Ocean  Monarch,  178'  6"  X  40'  X  26'  10",  1301  tons;  built  1848. 

330 


OH!  CALIFORNIA 

Webster,1  and  other  famous  packet-ships  for  the  Train 
Line,  and  (in  1846)  the  New  World,  1404  tons,  a 
record  in  size,  for  a  New  York  firm.  These  ships  were 
not  clippers,  but  they  established  the  reputation  of 
Donald  McKay,  and  gave  him  the  practice  and  equip- 
ment to  astonish  the  world  when  another  event  created 
a  demand  for  clipper  ships  of  fifteen  hundred  tons 
upwards. 


On  January  24,  1848,  a  workman  at  Sutter's  Mill, 
California,  discovered  a  gold  nugget  in  the  raceway. 
When  the  news  reached  the  Atlantic  coast,  it  was  re- 
ceived with  incredulity,  but  by  the  end  of  the  year, 
when  reports  were  accompanied  by  actual  nuggets, 
the  gold-fever  of  '49  swept  through  Massachusetts. 
Farmers  mortgaged  their  farms,  workmen  downed 
tools,  clerks  left  counting-rooms,  and  even  ministers 
abandoned  their  pulpits  in  order  to  seek  wealth  in 
this  land  of  Havilah.  Few  Yankee  Argonauts  took 
the  usual  overland  trail.  True  to  type,  they  chose  the 
ocean  route.  But  like  most  of  the  'forty-niners,'  many 
of  them  went  organized  in  semi-communistic  brother- 
hoods. How  this  idea  originated  no  one  seems  to 
know.  Whether  Fourierism  had  any  influence  is 
doubtful,  and  the  Communist  Manifesto  could  hardly 
have  inspired  a  movement,  the  sole  object  of  which 
was  money-getting.  A  few  companies  were  financed  by 
local  capitalists,  in  return  for  a  guaranteed  percentage 
of  the  winnings,  precisely  as  the  merchant  adventurers 
of  Old  England  'grub-staked*  the  Pilgrim  fathers. 
But  for  the  most  part  the  gold-seekers  of  Massachu- 

1  Daniel  Webster,  185'  x  37'  3"  X  24'  (unusually  long  and  narrow  for 
a  packet  ship),  1187  tons;  built  1850. 

331 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

setts  journeyed  West  in  organized  groups,  each  mem- 
ber of  which  was  pledged  to  serve  his  fellows  to  the 
best  of  his  particular  ability,  and  entitled  to  receive  an 
equal  share  in  the  common  gold  production. 

These  emigrant  companies  varied  in  number  from 
ten  to  one  hundred  and  fifty  young  men,  of  all  trades 
and  professions.  There  was  the  Bunker  Hill  Mining 
&  Trading  Company,  composed  of  thirty  mechanics 
from  Charlestown,  Cambridge,  and  Somerville,  paying 
five  hundred  dollars  each ;  the  New  Bedford  Company, 
commanded  by  Rotches  and  Delanos;  the  El  Dorado 
Association  of  Roxbury;  the  Hampshire  &  Holyoke 
Mining  &  Trading  Company;  the  Sagamore  &  Sacra- 
mento Company  of  Lynn;  the  Cotuit  Port  Associa- 
tion ;  the  Winnigahee  Mining  Company  of  Edgartown ; 
the  Hyannis  Gold  Company ;  the  Cape  Ann  Pioneers ; 
and  at  least  a  hundred  and  fifty  others  from  all  parts 
of  the  state. 

A  few  of  these  emigrant  companies  followed  the 
transcontinental  route.  The  Overland  Company,  of 
fifty  young  Roxbury  men,  marched  in  gray-and-gold 
uniforms,  with  seven  wagons,  thirty-one  mules,  four 
horses,  six  dogs,  two  colored  servants,  and  four  musi- 
cians. They  arrived  in  Sacramento  after  intense  suf- 
ferings, and  heavy  casualties  among  the  mules.  A  few 
took  the  Panama  route,  but  suffered  great  hardships 
crossing  the  Isthmus,  and  were  charged  from  two 
hundred  to  six  hundred  dollars  each  for  passage  thence 
to  San  Francisco.  But  the  great  majority  took  sail 
around  the  Horn.  Not  clipper  ships;  far  from  it! 
There  were  few  companies  like  the  exclusive  North 
Western  of  Boston,  composed  of  Adamses,  Dorrs,  and 
Whipples  paying  a  thousand  dollars  each,  which  could 
afford  a  crack  clipper  brig.  Few  shipowners  would 
charter.  The  oldest,  slowest,  and  most  decrepit  ves- 

332 


OH!  CALIFORNIA 

sels  were  purchased,  because  they  were  cheap.  Many 
companies,  especially  those  recruited  on  Cape  Cod  and 
Nantucket,  handled  their  own  vessels.  Twelve  out  of 
one  company  of  sixteen  that  left  the  island  on  Feb- 
ruary i,  1849,  were  whaling  captains,  as  familiar  with 
the  route  to  'Frisco  as  with  "  Marm  Hackett's  garden." 
The  gold-fever  drained  Nantucket  of  one-quarter  of 
its  voting  population  in  nine  months.  In  the  same 
period  eight  hundred  men  left  New  Bedford  for  the 
mines.  There  were  one  hundred  and  fifty  clearances 
from  Boston  to  California  in  1849,  one  hundred  and 
sixty-six  in  1850,  and  many  more  from  the  smaller 
ports. 

The  Mexican  War  had  hardly  disturbed  Massa- 
chusetts; but  all  through  forty-nine  the  Bay  State 
presented  the  spectacle  of  a  community  preparing  for 
war  on  a  large  scale.  Prudent  companies  took  two 
years'  provision,  and  stories  of  'Frisco  lawlessness 
made  every  emigrant  a  walking  arsenal.  Beef-packing 
establishments,  ship-biscuit  bakeries  and  firearm  man- 
ufactories were  running  full  blast;  and  the  Ames  plow 
works  turned  from  agricultural  machinery  to  picks 
and  shovels.  "The  members  of  a  society  could  be  told 
by  their  slouched  hats,  high  boots,  careless  attire  and 
general  appearance  of  reckless  daring  and  potential 
wealth,"  writes  Dr.  Octavius  T.  Howe.  On  the  Sab- 
bath preceding  departure  each  company  marched  in  a 
body  to  hear  a  farewell  sermon  (Genesis  n,  12,  being 
the  favorite  text),  and  to  receive  one  or  more  Bibles 
each  from  sympathetic  and  envious  neighbors.  Most 
companies  took  care  to  admit  only  men  of  good  char- 
acter, and  their  by-laws  usually  contain  prohibitions  of 
drunkenness,  gambling,  and  swearing,  which,  like  all 
their  regulations,  were  well  enough  observed  until 
they  reached  California.  The  Boston  Journal  pub- 

333 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

lished  a  special  California  edition  for  circulation  on 
the  Coast. 

When  the  Salem  barque  Eliza  cast  off  from  Derby 
Wharf  for  California,  late  in  '48,  one  of  the  passengers 
sang  the  following  words  to  the  popular  tune  of  "Oh! 
Susannah": 

I  came  from  Salem  City, 

With  my  washbowl  on  my  knee, 
I  'm  going  to  California, 

The  gold  dust  for  to  see. 
It  rained  all  night  the  day  I  left, 

The  weather  it  was  dry, 
The  sun  so  hot  I  froze  to  death, 
Oh !  brothers,  don't  you  cry. 
Oh!  California, 

That 's  the  land  for  me! 
I'm  going  to  Sacramento 

With  my  washbowl  on  my  knee. 

I  jumped  aboard  the  'Liza  ship, 

And  traveled  on  the  sea, 
And  every  time  I  thought  of  home 
I  wished  it  was  n't  me! 
Oh!  California, 

That's  the  land  for  me! 
I'm  off  for  Calif orni-a 

With  my  washbowl  on  my  knee. 

This  song  in  countless  versions,  but  with  the  same 
washbowl  chorus,  became  the  anthem  of  the  forty- 
niners. 

Deep-sea  sailormen  have  always  insisted  that  the 
discipline  and  safety  of  a  ship  can  only  be  maintained 
by  despotic  power  in  the  master.  But  democracy 
ruled  on  the  forty-niner  vessels.  Each  company,  al- 
though composed  in  good  part  of  master  mariners,  was 
a  miniature  soviet.  The  captain  was  elected,  and  some- 
times deposed  by  majority  vote;  and  the  same  method 

334 


OH!  CALIFORNIA 

determined  ports  of  call,  and  whether  the  Straits  of 
Magellan  or  the  Cape  Horn  were  chosen.  One  night 
off  the  River  Plate  on  the  little  schooner  Roanoke, 
belonging  to  the  Boston  Marine  Mining  Company,  all 
the  watch  were  below  playing  whist  with  the  skipper, 
except  a  man  at  the  wheel  and  another  on  the  lookout. 
The  latter,  seeing  a  squall  approach,  called  repeatedly 
to  his  captain  to  send  up  the  watch,  but  the  game  was 
too  interesting  to  interrupt.  Finally  he  sang  out, 
"Say,  Captain,  if  you  don't  send  that  watch  up  to 
take  in  the  flying  jib,  you  can  take  it  in  yourself,  I  '11 
be  d — d  if  I  'm  going  to  get  wet!" 

In  spite  of  these  soviet  methods  (or  because  of  them 
some  will  say)  it  seems  that  every  one  of  these  small 
and  often  superannuated  vessels  arrived  safely  at  San 
Francisco.  But  ship  fever  (typhus)  took  a  heavy  toll 
of  their  passengers,  on  the  five  to  eight  months'  voyage. 

On  arrival,  each  member's  part  was  provided  in  the. 
by-laws.  Some  were  to  stick  to  the  ship,  guard  the 
stores,  or  cook;  the  majority  wash  for  gold;  but  all 
share  alike  what  the  mining  members  produced.  What 
actually  happened  is  well  told  in  a  doggerel  poem  by 
Isaac  W.  Baker,  in  his  manuscript  "Journal  of  Pro- 
ceedings on  board  the  barque  San  Francisco,  of  and 
from  Beverly  for  California": 

The  San  Francisco  Company,  of  which  I  've  often  told, 
At  Sacramento  has  arrived  in  search  of  glittering  gold, 
The  bark  hauled  in,  the  cargo  out,  and  that  is  not  the  worst 
The  Company,  like  all  the  rest,  have  had  a  talk  and  burst. 
For  't  was,  talk,  talk,  growl,  growl,  talk,  talk  away, 
The  devil  a  bit  of  comfort 's  here  in  Calif orni-a. 

While  on  the  passage  all  was  well,  and  every  thing  was  nice, 
And  if  there  was  a  civil  growl,  't  was  settled  in  a  trice, 
But  here  example  had  been  set  by  companies  before, 
Who'd  all  dissolved  and  nothing  less,  so  we  did  nothing  more 
But  talk,  talk,  etc. 

335 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

We'd  forty  men  of  forty  minds,  instead  of  one  alone, 
And  each  wished  to  convert  the  rest,  but  still  preferred  his  own, 
Now  in  some  places  this  might  do,  but  here  it  won't,  you  see, 
For  independence  is  the  word  in  Californi-e. 

At  first  the  price  of  lumber  fell,  which  made  it  bad  for  us, 

Some  wished  to  sell  and  some  did  not,  which  made  the  matter 

worse, 

Some  longed  to  start  into  the  mines  and  let  the  Barkey  stay 
While  others  said  it  would  n't  do  for  all  to  go  away. 

Some  longed  to  get  their  ounce  a  day,  while  others  knew  they 

could  n't, 
And  wished  to  share  and  keep  all  square,  but  then  the  workers 

would  n't. 

A  meeting  of  the  whole  was  called,  the  question  put  and  tried, 
Our  Constitution  voted  down,  our  Bye  Laws  null  and  void. 

Now  carpenters  can  take  a  job  and  work  for  what  they  please, 
And  those  who  do  not  like  to  work  can  loaf  and  take  their  ease 
And  squads  can  form  for  travelling,  or  any  thing  they  choose, 
And  if  they  don't  a  fortune  make,  they  '11  not  have  it  to  lose. 

And  can  chat,  chat,  sing,  sing,  chat,  chat  away, 

And  take  all  comfort  that  they  can  in  Calif  or  ni-a. 

Within  three  weeks  of  landing  on  California  soil, 
every  emigrant  company  dissolved  into  its  separate, 
individual  elements.  For  a  treasure-seeking  enter- 
prise like  that  of  '49,  in  a  setting  of  pioneer  individual- 
ism, communism  was  about  as  well  suited  as  to  the 
New  York  stock  exchange  or  the  Supreme  Council  of 
the  League  of  Nations. 

The  Massachusetts  forty-niners  did  not  go  to  Cali- 
fornia to  settle.  The  average  man's  intention  was  to 
make  his  pile  and  return  home  rich.  A  few  did  come 
back  to  dazzle  the  natives,  and  a  few  became  Cali- 
fornia millionaires;  but  the  greater  part  went  broke. 
It  was  not  the  miners  who  made  the  big  money  in  '49- 
'50,  but  the  men  who  exploited  the  miners. 

Of  the  many  stories  of  fortunes  lost  and  won  by 

336 


The  Best  Chance  Yet,  for 

C4LIFORNA! 


A  Meeting  will  be  held  in  COIIASSET,  at  the  Office  of 

H.  j.  mm, 

On  SATURDAY,  January  21th,  at  II  O'clock,  fin-  the  pur- 
pose of  forming  a  Company,  to  be  called  the  "  South  Shore  and 
California  Joint  Stock  Company ;"  to  be  composed  of  3O 
Members,  and  eaeh  Member  paying  sJHM>. 

COHASSET,  JANUARY  44, 


Propeller  Power  Pre»io>,  142  Wajhington  Bt,  Bo.ton. 


POSTER  ADVERTISING  AN  EMIGRANT  COMPANY 


OH!  CALIFORNIA 

emigrating  Yankees,  that  of  Dr.  Samuel  Merritt,  of 
Plymouth,  is  typical.  Liquidating  his  property,  he 
purchased  a  brig  and  loaded  her  with  merchandise  and 
passengers.  At  the  last  moment  he  decided  to  invest  in 
tacks  for  the  California  market,  and  started  on  horse- 
back for  the  Duxbury  tack  factory.  On  the  way  he  was 
overtaken  by  a  messenger,  who  recalled  him  to  attend 
an  accident,  immediately  after  which  he  had  to  sail, 
without  the  tacks.  They  were  selling  for  five  dollars  a 
paper  at  San  Francisco  when  he  arrived.  At  Valparaiso, 
on  the  way,  another  fortune  was  missed  by  failing  to 
fill  up  a  hole  in  the  cargo  with  potatoes,  of  which  the  San 
Francisco  market  was  totally  denuded.  But  the  bottom 
had  fallen  out  of  the  market  for  every  other  article  in 
his  cargo.  However,  within  a  year  his  medical  practice 
at  San  Francisco  brought  him  forty  thousand  dollars. 
Hoping  to  become  the  Frederic  Tudor  of  the  coast, 
Dr.  Merritt  chartered  a  Maine  brig  to  load 'ice  at 
Puget  Sound  and  bring  it  to  San  Francisco  in  time  for 
summer.  His  captain  discovered  that  Puget  Sound 
was  not  Maine,  but  returned  with  a  load  of  piles  in 
lieu  of  ice.  Piles  happened  to  be  much  wanted  then 
for  wharves,  and  the  venture  proved  profitable,  as  did 
a  second  of  the  same  nature.  Vessels  began  to  flock 
northward  for  piles,  so  the  Doctor  wisely  decided  he 
had  had  the  cream,  and  would  let  them  take  the  skim 
milk.  He  directed  his  shipmaster  to  take  Puget  Sound 
timber  to  Australia,  to  exchange  for  coal.  Again  the 
captain  used  good  judgment.  Instead  of  coal,  he  re- 
turned with  a  load  of  oranges  from  the  Society  Islands, 
and  made  another  killing.  Dr.  Merritt  then  closed  his 
office,  purchased  a  large  tract  of  land  across  the  Bay, 
created  the  city  of  Oakland,  and  in  due  course  became 
a  multi-millionaire,  mayor  of  the  city,  and  owner  of 
the  finest  yacht  on  the  Coast. 

337 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

A  stranger  fate  was  that  of  John  Higgins,  of  Brew- 
ster,  forty-niner  who  never  reached  California.  Work- 
ing his  way  out  on  a  steamer,  he  was  wrecked  on  the 
Australian  coast,  shipped  as  second  mate  on  a  brig, 
was  shipwrecked  again,  and  drifted  to  the  Wellington 
Islands,  where  the  natives  received  him  with  open 
arms.  He  married  the  chief's  daughter,  established  a 
trading  business  with  the  whalers,  and  left  two  sons 
to  continue  his  work  of  civilization,  which  even  the 
missionaries  acknowledged  to  be  more  successful  than 
any  black-coated  brother  possibly  could  have  done. 

Many  Massachusetts  shipowners  sent  their  vessels 
with  full  cargoes  to  San  Francisco  in  time  to  obtain  the 
prices  of  '49  that  seem  fabulous  even  to-day  —  forty- 
four  dollars  a  barrel  for  flour,  sixteen  dollars  a  bushel 
for  potatoes,  ten  dollars  a  dozen  for  eggs  that  had  been 
around  the  Horn,  one  thousand  per  cent  profit  on 
lumber.  Freights  rose  to  such  figures  that  the  ship 
Argonaut,  built  at  Medford  in  1849  for  John  E.  Lodge, 
paid  for  herself  before  casting  off  her  lines  for  her 
maiden  voyage.  When  reports  of  these  prices  reached 
the  merchant-shipowners,  they  rushed  cargoes  of 
every  sort  and  description  around  the  Horn,  until  in 
1851  the  market  became  glutted  and  unopened  cases 
of  dry  goods  were  used  for  sidewalks  in  the  muddy 
streets  of  San  Francisco.  Between  June  26  and  July 
28,  1850,  there  entered  the  Golden  Gate  seventeen 
vessels  from  New  York  and  sixteen  from  Boston, 
whose  average  passage  was  one  hundred  and  fifty-nine 
days.  Yet  on  July  24  there  arrived  at  San  Francisco 
the  little  New  York  clipper  ship  Sea  Witch,  just 
ninety-seven  days  out.  Every  mercantile  agency  in 
San  Francisco  began  clamoring  for  goods  to  be  shipped 
by  clipper,  and  the  shipyards  responded  to  their 
demand. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

THE  CLIPPER  SHIP 
1850-1854 

THE  golden  sands  of  California  were  a  quickening 
force  to  the  shipyards  of  Massachusetts.  For  four 
years  they  teemed  with  the  noblest  fleet  of  sailing 
vessels  that  man  has  ever  seen  or  is  likely  to  see. 

Massachusetts  launched  her  first  clipper  ships  in 
1850,  from  the  yard  of  Samuel  Hall;  the  Surprise l  for 
the  Salem  Lows,  then  of  New  York;  and  the  Game- 
Cock  2  for  Daniel  C.  Bacon,  of  Boston. 

Samuel  Hall,  now  fifty  years  old,  was  the  most  emi- 
nent shipbuilder  in  the  commonwealth.  Of  an  old 
Marshfield  family,  he  served  his  apprenticeship  on 
the  North  River,  and  at  his  majority  left  for  Medford 
with  a  capital  consisting  of  a  broad-axe  and  twenty- 
five  cents.  After  pursuing  his  trade  on  the  Mystic,  the 
Penobscot,  and  at  Duxbury,  he  became,  as  we  have 
seen,  the  pioneer  master  builder  of  East  Boston.  The 
Game- Cock  and  Surprise  were  designed  by  a  twenty- 
three-year-old  Bostonian  named  Samuel  H.  Pook,3 
the  first  independent  architect  of  merchant  vessels 
in  New  England. 

Well  did  Sam  Hall  choose  the  name  of  his  first 

1  Surprise,  183'  6"  x  38'  8"  X  22',  1261  tons. 

*  Game-Cock,  190'  6"x  39'  10"  x  22',  1392  tons. 

*  Samuel  Hartt  Pook  (1827-1901)  designed  three  of  the  eighteen 
California  clippers  that  made  a  voyage  of  less  than  one  hundred  days 
from  an  Atlantic  port  to  San  Francisco  before  1861 — the  Surprise, 
Witchcraft,  and  Herald  of  the  Morning  ;  and  the  Northern  Light,  which 
has  the  record  from  San  Francisco  to  Boston.  An  early  advocate  of  iron- 
clads, he  became,  like  his  father,  Samuel  Moore  Pook  (1804-78)  a  naval 
constructor,  U.S.N.,  and  remained  in  the  service  until  1889. 

339 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

clipper  ship.  One  surprise  of  her  launching  was  a 
banquet,  not  for  owners  and  bankers  and  all  bumble- 
dom, but  for  the  mothers,  wives,  and  sweethearts  of 
the  workingmen  who  built  the  ship.  The  next  sensa- 
tion came  when  she  was  launched  fully  rigged,  with 
her  gear  rove  off,  all  three  skysail  yards  crossed,  and 
colors  flying.  Water-front  pessimists  expected  her  to 
capsize  with  such  heavy  top-hamper.  Others  said  she 
would  slide  into  the  harbor  mud  and  stick  there.  But 
with  half  Boston  cheering,  and  the  bells  of  every 
church  and  meeting-house  jangling  out  a  welcome,  the 
Surprise  clave  the  water  with  her  sharp  stern,  shot  out 
into  the  harbor,  swayed  gently  to  get  her  balance,  and 
paused,  erect,  with  the  air  of  a  young  and  insolent 
queen. 

She  was  the  first  clipper  ship  commanded  by  Philip 
Dumaresq.1  He  came  of  a  long  line  of  merchant- 
captains.  His  mother  belonged  to  the  Gardiner-Hallo- 
well  family,  and  Philip  was  born  on  one  of  their  great 
Kennebec  estates  in  1809.  But  like  his  only  peers  on 
clipper  quarterdecks,  Captains  "Bully"  Waterman, 
of  New  York,  "Nat"  Palmer,  of  Stonington,  and 
"Perk"  Cressy,  of  Marblehead,  Captain  Dumaresq 
had  followed  the  sea  since  his  teens,  and  worked  his 
way  up  from  before  the  mast.  At  twenty-two  he  re- 
ceived his  first  command,  and  in  Russell  &  Co.'s 
China  fleet  became  noted  for  his  expert  navigation, 
for  quiet,  effective  discipline,  and  for  getting  the  ut- 
most speed  out  of  a  vessel.  The  Surprise,  under 
Captain  Dumaresq,  again  fulfilled  the  promise  of  her 
name.  On  her  maiden  voyage  she  knocked  a  day  off  the 
Sea  Witch's  record  to  San  Francisco,  which  conserva- 
tives had  ascribed  to  Waterman's  luck.  But  the  new 
mark  of  ninety-six  days  did  not  last  long. 
1  Pronounced  "D'merrick." 
340  . 


THE  CLIPPER  SHIP 

On  a  bitterly  cold  December  afternoon  in  1850, 
Donald  McKay  launched  the  Stag-Hound,  his  first 
clipper.  Pioneer  of  a  new  fifteen-hundred-ton  class, 
the  Stag-Hound  both  by  her  appearance  and  her  per- 
formance l  placed  Donald  McKay  at  the  head  of  his 
profession.  Before  many  months  passed  the  head  of 
the  New  York  firm  of  Grinnell,  Minturn  &  Co.  visited 
McKay's  yard,  and  took  a  fancy  to  a  ship  that  was 
being  built  for  Enoch  Train.  He  offered  double  the 
contract  price  to  the  owner,  who  could  not  afford  to 
refuse.  It  was  a  good  bargain  for  Grinnell  &  Minturn ; 
for  this  was  the  Flying  Cloud. 

McKay  built  faster  clippers  and  larger  clippers; 
but  for  perfection  and  beauty  of  design,  weatherliness 
and  consistent  speed  under  every  condition,  neither 
he  nor  any  one  else  surpassed  the  Flying  Cloud.  She 
was  the  fastest  vessel  on  long  voyages  that  ever  sailed 
under  the  American  flag. 

Her  dimensions  were  229  feet  length  on  deck,  40 
feet,  8  inches  breadth,  and  21  feet,  6  inches  depth;  reg- 
istered tonnage  1783.  Her  figurehead  was  a  winged 
angel  blowing  a  trumpet  just  under  the  bowsprit. 
Captain  Josiah  Perkins  Cressy,2  of  Marblehead,  thirty- 
seven  years  old  but  fourteen  years  a  shipmaster,  was 
her  commander.  On  her  maiden  voyage  in  the  summer 
of  1851  the  Flying  Cloud  made  a  day's  run  of  374 
miles,  logged  1256  miles  in  four  consecutive  days,  and 
arrived  at  San  Francisco  eighty-nine  days  out  of  New 
York.  This  run  was  only  twice  equaled,  by  herself  in 
1854,  and  by  the  Andrew  Jackson  in  1860.  On  her 

1  The  Stag-Hound  (209'  X  39'  8"  X  2l',  1534  tons)  holds  the  record 
of  thirteen  days  from  Boston  Light  to  the  equator,  no  other  ship  having 
come  within  three  days  of  it,  whether  from  Boston  or  Sandy  Hook.  She 
has  second-best  record,  eight  days,  twenty  hours,  from  San  Francisco  to . 
Honolulu. 

7  Pronounced  "Creecy." 

341 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

return  passage,  having  crossed  the  Pacific  to  Canton 
for  a  cargo  of  tea,  the  Flying  Cloud  made  the  two 
thousand  miles  from  that  port  to  Java  Head  in  six 
days,  almost  halving  the  previous  record.  In  addition, 
she  has  the  best  average  for  three,  four,  and  five  voy- 
ages from  an  Atlantic  port  to  San  Francisco. 

Donald  McKay  was  an  unusual  combination  of 
artist  and  scientist,  of  idealist  and  practical  man  of 
business.  With  dark  hair  curling  back  from  a  high, 
intellectual  forehead,  powerful  Roman  nose,  inscruta- 
ble brown  eyes,  and  firm  lips,  he  was  as  fair  to  look 
upon  as  his  ships.  His  serene  and  beautiful  character 
won  him  the  respect  and  the  affection  of  his  employees, 
and  made  the  atmosphere  of  his  shipbuilding  yard 
that  of  a  happy,  loyal  family.  His  ships  were  alive  to 
him,  and  when  permitted  to  name  them  himself  by 
a  wise  owner,  he  invariably  chose  something  fitting 
and  beautiful.  Stag-Hound  and  Mastiff  for  two  power- 
ful, determined  clippers  that  could  grapple  with  every 
element  but  fire;  Flying  Cloud  —  her  rivals  knew  what 
that  meant,  when  she  tore  by  them  at  sea;  Flying  Fish 
and  Westward  Ho!  —  both  of  the .  California  fleet ; 
Romance  of  the  Seas  for  a  ship  whose  sleek,  slender 
beauty  reminded  the  old  salts  of  their  youthful  visits 
to  Nukahiva;  Sovereign  of  the  Seas  for  a  stately  clipper 
that  made  a  marvelous  record  against  head  winds  and 
hurricanes;  Great  Republic  for  the  ship  of  ships;  Light- 
ning for  the  fastest  sailing  vessel  ever  built,  and  Glory 
of  the  Seas  for  his  last,  and  in  some  respects  his  best, 
creation. 

Experience,  character,  and  mathematics  self-taught 
were  the  firm  soil  from  which  the  genius  of  Donald 
McKay  blossomed.  He  designed  every  vessel  built  in 
his  yard,  and  personally  attended  to  every  detail  of 
her  construction. 

342 


THE  CLIPPER  SHIP 

. . .  First  with  nicest  skill  and  art, 
Perfect  and  finished  in  every  part, 
A  little  model  the  Master  wrought, 
Which  should  be  to  the  larger  plan 
What  the  child  is  to  the  man, 
Its  counterpart  in  miniature. 

From  the  model  the  lines  were  taken  off,  enlarged  to 
their  proper  dimensions,  and  laid  down  in  the  mold- 
loft.  When  the  great  frames  were  in  place,  Donald 
McKay  would  inspect  the  ship's  skeleton  from  every 
angle,  clothing  it  in  imagination  with  skin  of  oak; 
and  if  anything  looked  wrong  by  perhaps  an  eighth 
of  an  inch,  he  chalked  a  frame  for  shaving  off  or  filling 
out.  By  such  methods  were  designed  these  great 
clipper  ships  that  moved  faster  through  the  water, 
laden  down  as  they  were  with  heavy  cargoes,  than 
any  sailing  yacht  or  fancy  racing  machine  designed 
by  the  scientific  architects  of  to-day.1  Eight  knots 
an  hour  is  considered  good  speed  for  an  America's  cup 
race  of  thirty  miles.  The  Red  Jacket  logged  an  average 
of  14.7  for  six  consecutive  days  in  the  Western  Ocean; 
the  Lightning  did  15.5  for  ten  days,  covering  3722 
miles,  and  averaged  II  for  an  entire  passage  from 
Australia  to  England.  A  speed  of  12.5  knots  on  a 
broad  reach  in  smooth  waters,  by  the  Resolute  or 
Shamrock,  excites  the  yachting  reporters.  The  Light- 
ning logged  1 8.2  for  twenty-four  hours  in  1857,  and 
there  is  a  tradition  that  the  James  Baines  on  an 
Australian  voyage  in  1856  logged  21  knots  for  one 
hour.2 

1  No  disparagement  of  modern  naval  architects  is  intended ;  they  have 
progressed  far  beyond  the  designs  of  the  fifties  in  fishing  schooners  and 
yachts.  Yet,  I  am  informed  by  one  of  the  most  eminent  among  them, 
no  one  to-day  could  make  an  essential  improvement  over  the  McKay 
clippers,  for  a  sailing  ship  of  their  size. 

1  In  justice  to  the  improved  full-bodied  vessels  built  at  this  period,  it 

343 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

The  records  show  conclusively  Donald  McKay's 
supremacy  over  any  other  builder,  and  the  supremacy 
of  Massachusetts  builders  over  those  of  any  other 
state.  Only  twenty-two  passages  from  an  Atlantic 
port  around  Cape  Horn  to  San  Francisco,  in  less  than 
one  hundred  days,  are  on  record.  Of  these,  seven  were 
made  by  McKay  ships — Flying  Cloud  and  Flying 
Fish,  two  each;  Great  Republic,  Romance  of  the  Seas, 
and  Glory  of  the  Seas.  Only  two  other  builders,  Samuel 
Hall,  of  Boston,  with  the  John  Gilpin  and  Surprise, 
and  Westervelt,  of  New  York,  have  even  two  voyages 
in  this  honor  list.  Including  the  Witchcraft,  built  by 
Paul  Curtis  at  Chelsea,  and  the  Herald  of  the  Morning, 
built  by  Hayden  &  Cudworth  at  Medford,  we  have 
one-half  of  these  record  voyages  over  the  longest  race- 
course in  the  world,  to  the  credit  of  Massachusetts- 
built  vessels.  Of  the  rest,  four  belong  to  the  other 
New  England  states,  and  seven  to  New  York.1 

There  were  a  dozen  or  more  Massachusetts  builders 
besides  Donald  McKay  and  Samuel  Hall,  who  built 
clipper  ships  that  were  a  credit  to  the  commonwealth. 
Edward  and  Henry  O.  Briggs,  of  South  Boston,  grand- 
should  be  remarked  that  they  too  made  some  remarkable  passages.  In 
1854  the  barque  Dragon  of  Salem,  289  tons,  Captain  Thomas  C.  Dunn, 
built  at  Newburyport  in  1850,  made  the  i6,67O-mile  run  from  Salem 
to  the  Fiji  Islands  in  eighty-five  days;  an  average  of  8.2  knots  for  the 
entire  voyage.  Few  tramp  steamers  to-day  could  do  better. 

1  The  list  of  all  California  outward  passages  between  1850  and  1861 
made  in  no  days  or  better  (in  Captain  Clark's  Clipper  Ship  Era, 
Appendix  n)  gives  the  same  result.  Nineteen  are  by  McKay  ships.  His 
nearest  competitor,  Webb,  of  New  York,  has  fifteen.  All  the  other 
Boston  builders  together  have  twenty-two,  all  the  other  New  York 
builders,  twenty-three.  Medford  builders  have  seventeen;  other  Mas- 
sachusetts builders,  seven.  Yet  out  of  171  California  clipper  ships  and 
barques  listed  by  Captain  Clark,  McKay  built  only  ten;  Samuel  Hall 
and  Briggs  Bros.,  of  Boston,  and  Webb,  of  New  York,  each  built  eleven. 
In  addition,  McKay  built  the  great  Australian  clippers  which  do  not 
figure  in  this  list,  and  which  no  builder,  American  or  foreign,  equaled. 

344 


DONALD  MCKAY 

Master  Builder  of  Clipper  Ships 


THE  CLIPPER  SHIP 

sons  of  the  North  River  builder  of  the  Columbia,  spe- 
cialized in  medium  clipper  ships,  a  class  somewhat 
underbred  in  appearance  compared  with  the  Flying 
Cloud  and  Surprise,  but  with  carefully  designed  water- 
lines  and  small  displacement  which  often  produced 
remarkable  speed.  Their  Northern  Light,1  under  the 
command  of  Captain  Hatch,  completed  a  round  voy- 
age from  Boston  to  San  Francisco  in  exactly  seven 
months.  On  the  homeward  passage,  off  Cape  Horn, 
she  passed  the  New  York  clipper  ship  Contest,  which 
had  sailed  a  day  earlier;  and  with  skysails,  ringtail 
and  studdingsails  set  on  both  sides,  alow  and  aloft,  she 
slipped  into  the  Narrows  of  Boston  Harbor  on  the 
evening  of  May  27,  1853,  just  seventy-six  days,  five 
hours,  from  San  Francisco.  That  record  remains  good 
to  this  day.2 

Other  bright  lights  of  Briggs  Brothers  were  the 
Boston  Light,  Starlight,  and  the  ill-fated  Golden  Light, 
which,  ten  days  out  on  her  first  voyage,  was  set  afire 
by  lightning,  and  abandoned  at  sea. 

Robert  E.  Jackson,  of  East  Boston,  built  the  Winged 
Racer,  John  Bertram,  Blue  Jacket,  and  the  Queen  of 
Clippers*  "one  of  the  finest  and  largest  of  these  ships," 
wrote  Frank  Marryat,  the  English  traveler,  from  San 
Francisco.  "She  is  extremely  sharp  at  either  end,  and, 
'bows  on,'  she  has  the  appearance  of  a  wedge.  Her 
accommodations  are  as  perfect  as  those  of  a  first-class 
ocean  steamer,  and  are  as  handsomely  decorated;  and, 

1  Northern  Light,  171'  4"  X  36'  x  21 '  9",  1021  tons;  built  1851. 

1  In  San  Francisco  voyages  the  homeward  passage  was  much  easier 
than  the  outward  owing  to  prevailing  westerly  winds.  Consequently 
the  outward  passage  is  always  selected  as  a  test  of  a  vessel's  performance, 
and  the  Northern  Light's  feat  by  no  means  equals  the  Flying  Cloud's 
record  of  eighty-nine  days  to  San  Francisco.  But  she  made  Manila  in 
eighty-nine  days  from  Boston  in  1856. 

1  Queen  of  Clippers,  248'  6"  x  45'  X  24',  2360  tons;  built  in  1853  for 
Seccomb  &  Taylor,  of  Boston,  but  sold  to  Zerega  &  Co.,  of  New  York. 

345 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

as  it  is  worthy  of  remark  that  great  attention  has 
been  paid  to  the  comfort  of  the  crew."  Paul  Curtis's 
Witchcraft  was  a  fast  and  handsome  clipper,  with  a 
grim  Salem  witch  for  her  figure-head.  Medford  build- 
ers like  J.  O.  Curtis,  Hayden  &  Cudworth,  and  S. 
Lapham  have  more  fast  California  passages  to  their 
credit,  considering  the  number  they  built,  than  those 
of  any  other  place.  Several  smaller  clipper  ships  were 
built  by  the  Shivericks,  at  East  Dennis,  by  J.  M. 
Hood  &  Co.  at  Somerset,  and  by  the  experienced 
builders  of  Newburyport,  who  surpassed  all  others  for 
careful  work  and  finish.  The  Dreadnaught,  built  by 
Currier  and  Townsend,  became  the  most  famous 
Liverpool  packet-ship,  and  was  the  only  clipper  to 
have  a  chanty  composed  in  her  special  honor.  Captain 
Samuel  Samuels,  of  New  York,  unexcelled  as  a  driver 
of  men  and  vessels,  commanded  this  "saucy,  wild 
packet"  for  almost  seventy  passages  across  the  At- 
lantic, in  which  she  made  several  eastward  runs  under 
fourteen  days.1 

One  finds  many  new  names  in  the  list  of  Massachu- 
setts owners  of  clipper  ships.  Their  great  initial  cost 
and  maintenance  expense  brought  about  a  separation 
of  shipowner  and  merchant.  The  clippers  were  really 

1  Dreadnought,  220'  x  39'  X  26',  1400  tons.  Captain  Clark  (Clipper 
Skip  Era,  246),  by  printing  her  actual  log  as  given  in  three  Liverpool 
papers,  has  definitely  exploded  the  myth  of  the  Dreadnaught' s  nine-day 
seventeen-hour  passage,  from  Sandy  Hook  to  Queenstown  in  March, 
1859,  which  Captain  Samuels  never  claimed  until  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury. For  evidence  on  the  other  side  of  this  famous  controversy,  see 
F.  B.  C.  Bradlee,  The  Dreadnaught  (2d  ed.,  1920).  Mr.  Bradlee  has  dis- 
covered a  second  "nine-day  passage"  in  the  Illustrated  London  News, 
July  9,  1859,  which  states  that  the  Dreadnaught  "arrived  off  Cape  Clear 
on  the  27th  ult.,  in  nine  days  from  New  York."  But  the  New  York 
Herald  of  June  17,  p.  8e,  reports  by  telegraph  from  "  Sandy  Hook, 
June  16,  sunset, .  .  .  the  ship  Dreadnaught,  for  Liverpool,  passed  the 
bar  at  I2J  P.M.  Wind  SW,  light."  On  July  19,  p.  8c,  it  reports  her 
arrival  at  Liverpool  on  July  2. 

346 


THE  CLIPPER  SHIP 

large  packet-ships,  whose  owners  depended  for  profit 
on  freight  and  passage  money,  not  on  speculative  car- 
goes of  their  own.  And  profit  they  certainly  did  make, 
in  the  flush  days  of  1850-53,  for  the  glut  of  1851  at 
San  Francisco  did  not  last  long.  Freight  ranged  as 
high  as  sixty  dollars  per  ton,  and  it  was  an  unlucky 
ship  that  did  not  pay  for  herself  by  her  first  round 
voyage  to  California.  The  Surprise  did  so,  and  made 
fifty  thousand  dollars  to  boot. 

Many  of  t^e  most  famous  Massachusetts-built 
clippers  were  GWned  by  New  York  or  British  firms, 
and  never  saw  Boston  after  their  first  departure. 
Others,  owned  by  Boston  or  Salem  firms,  were  oper- 
ated out  of  New  York.  But  there  were  still  a  goodly 
number  that  plied  regularly  from  Boston  to  San 
Francisco,  and  then  crossed  the  Pacific  to  bring  tea, 
hemp,  and  sugar  to  England  and  America.  Several 
clipper  ships  were  owned  on  shares,  like  the  old-timers, 
but  operated  by  regular  packet-lines.  Such  a  one  was 
the  Wild  Ranger,1  built  by  J.  O.  Curtis  at  Medford 
in  1853  for  various  Searses  and  Thachers  of  Cape  Cod, 
and  commanded  on  two  California  voyages  by  one 
of  their  number,  twenty- four-year-old  J.  Henry  Sears, 
of  Brewster. 

In  May,  1853,  an  intending  passenger  for  San  Fran- 
cisco, perusing  the  shipping  columns  of  the  Boston 
"Daily  Advertiser,"  would  be  embarrassed  to  make 
a  choice.  Winsor's  Regular  Line  offer  the  "first-class 
clipper  ships"  Belle  of  the  West  and  Bonita,  and  the 
"half-clipper  barque"  Cochituate.  Timothy  Davis  & 
Co.'s  Line  advertise  the  "half  clipper  ship  Sabine" 

1  Wild  Ranger,  180'  x  35'  4"  x  23',  1044  tons.  She  was  chartered  to 
Glidden  &  Williams's  Line.  The  ship  Mary  Clover,  here  depicted  to 
show  the  contrast  between  a  clipper  and  a  contemporary  full-bodied 
ship,  was  595  tons,  built  by  Briggs  Brothers,  at  South  Boston,  in  1849. 
She  was  a  very  successful  ship,  and  was  reported  still  alive  in  1900. 

347 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

and  the  "new  and  beautiful  clipper  ship  Juniper."  l 
Glidden  &  Williams  make  the  bravest  display  with 
the  "magnificent  first-class  clipper  ship  White  Swal- 
low," to  be  followed  by  the  Wild  Ranger  and  John 
Bertram;  the  "new  and  beautiful  half  clipper  ship 
West  Wind"  and  the  "first-class  and  well-known 
packet-ship  Western  Star."  This  was  the  greatest  of 
the  Boston  firms  operating  clipper  ships.  Its  San 
Francisco  line  also  contained,  at  one  time  or  another, 
the  Witch  of  the  Wave,  Golden  West,  Queen  of  the  Seas, 
Westward  Ho/,  Morning  Light,  and'  Sierra  Nevada. 
Sampson  &  Tappan  owned  the  Flying  Fish,  Winged 
Racer,  and  Nightingale,  a  supremely  beautiful  extreme 
clipper  built  in  Portsmouth,  New  Hampshire,  and 
named  for  Jenny  Lind.  George  Bruce  Upton  owned  the 
Stag-Hound,  Reindeer,  Bald  Eagle,  and  Romance  of  the 
Seas.  James  Huckins  &  Sons  had  most  of  the  Briggs 
Brothers'  "Lights."  Baker  &  Morrill  owned  the  Star- 
light and  Southern  Cross;  and  John  E.  Lodge  (father 
of  Senator  Lodge),  the  Argonaut,  Don  Quixote,  and 
Storm  King;  William  Lincoln  &  Co.,  the  Golden  Eagle, 
Kingfisher,  and  White  Swallow;  Curtis  &  Peabody,  the 
Meteor,  Cyclone,  Saracen,  and  Mameluke.  The  Fear- 
less, Galatea,  and  two  named  Golden  Fleece,  carried  the 
black  race-horse  flag  of  William  F.  Weld  &  Co.,  a 
house  which  outlasted  most  of  the  merchant-ship- 
owners of  Boston,  and  after  the  Civil  War  owned  the 
largest  sailing  fleet  in  America. 
Two  famous  Boston  firms  of  Cape  Cod  origin  were 

1  One  will  search  in  vain  for  several  of  these  "clippers"  in  authorita- 
tive lists  like  Captain  Clark's  and  Dr.  O.  T.  Howe's,  for  when  the  clipper 
ships  became  popular,  every  new  vessel  of  a  certain  size  was  advertised 
at  least  as  "half-clipper."  A  rigid  distinction  is  made  in  the  early 
American  Lloyds'  Registers  between  clipper  ships,  and  sharp  ships, 
medium  ships,  and  full-bodied  ships,  only  the  extremest  of  clippers 
falling  in  the  first  class. 

348 


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THE  CLIPPER  SHIP 

Howes  &  Crowell,  who  owned  the  Climax,  Ringleader, 
and  Robin  Hood,  and  D.  C.  &  W.  S.  Bacon,  who  owned 
the  Game-Cock,  Hoogly,  and  Oriental.  Daniel  C.  Bacon 
was  a  link  between  the  Federalist  and  the  clipper 
periods,  having  been  mate  under  William  Sturgis  in  the 
old  Northwest  fur  trade.  In  1852  he  was  elected  presi- 
dent of  the  American  Navigation  Club,  an  association 
of  Boston  shipowners  and  merchants,  which  offered 
to  back  an  American  against  a  British  clipper  for  a 
race  from  England  to  China  and  back,  £10,000  a  side. 
Although  the  stakes  were  subsequently  doubled,  no 
acceptance  was  received. 

There  was  no  veneer  or  sham  about  the  beauty  of  - 
the  Massachusetts  clippers.  They  were  all  well  and 
solidly  built  of  the  best  oak,  Southern  pine,  and  hack- 
matack, copper  fastened  and  sheathed  with  Taunton 
yellow  metal.  Scamping  or  skimping  never  occurred 
to  a  clipper-ship  builder,  and  if  it  had,  no  Yankee 
workman  would  have  stayed  in  his  yard.  In  finish  the 
clipper  ships  surpassed  anything  previously  attempted 
in  marine  art.  Those  built  in  Newburyport,  in  partic- 
ular, were  noted  for  the  evenness  of  their  seams  and 
the  perfection  of  their  joiner-work.  The  topsides, 
planed  and  sandpapered  smooth  as  a  mackerel,  were 
painted  a  dull  black  that  brought  out  their  lines  like 
a  black  velvet  dress  on  a  beautiful  woman.  The  pine 
decks  were  holystoned  cream-white.  Stanchions,  fife- 
rails,  and  houses  shone  with  mahogany,  rosewood,  and 
brass.  Many  had  sumptuous  staterooms,  cabins,  and 
bathrooms  for  passengers,  that  put  the  old-time  stuffy 
Cunarders  to  shame.  The  Mastiff  had  a  library  costing 
twelve  hundred  dollars.  Constant  improvements  were 
made  in  gear  and  rigging.  Patent  blocks,  trusses,  and 
steering  gear  saved  time  and  labor.  The  Howes 
double-topsail  rig  (an  improvement  on  Captain  R.  B. 

349 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

Forbes's  invention)  was  generally  adopted  by  the  later 
clippers,  spread  to  the  ships  of  all  nations,  and  is  still 
in  use.  No  detail  was  omitted  that  might  increase 
speed,  and  no  expense  spared  to  make  the  Massachu- 
setts clippers  invulnerable  to  the  most  critical  nautical 
eye. 

Boston  Harbor  never  presented  a  more  animated 
spectacle  than  during  the  clipper-ship  era.  One  April 
day  in  1854,  wrote  F.  O.  Dabney,  no  less  than  six 
large  new  clippers,  undergoing  the  process  of  rigging, 
could  be  seen  from  his  counting-room  windows  en 
Central  Wharf.  Across  the  harbor,  the  East  Boston 
shore  from  Jeffries'  Point  to  Chelsea  Bridge  was  al- 
most a  continuous  line  of  vessels  in  various  stages  of 
construction.  Twenty  ships  of  eleven  hundred  tons 
upward  were  built  there  that  year.  Some  idea  of  the 
inner  harbor  and  the  water-front  may  be  gained  from 
Mottram's  engraving,  and  from  the  Bradlee  photo- 
graph, both  made  at  the  end  of  the  era,  in  1857.  In 
the  center  of  the  engraving  is  the  clipper  ship  Night- 
ingale, a  marked  contrast  in  size  and  form  to  the 
old-fashioned  ship  at  the  left  of  the  picture.  At  the 
extreme  left  is  a  typical  fishing  pinkie;  and  this  side  of 
the  Nightingale,  a  coasting  schooner.  The  photograph 
shows  Mediterranean  fruiters  lined  up  against  Central 
Wharf,  a  New  York  packet-schooner  at  the  extreme 
right,  and  in  the  center,  conspicuous  among  the  tier  of 
vessels  at  the  end  of  India  Wharf,  the  clipper  ship 
Defender,  built  by  Donald  McKay. 


The  men  who  handled  these  great  vessels  were  a 
class  by  themselves.  The  officers,  mostly  of  New 
England  stock  and  many  from  Cape  Cod,  had  followed 

350 


THE  CLIPPER  SHIP 

the  sea  since  boyhood,  and  were  steeped  in  experience. 
No  others  could  be  trusted  to  drive  these  saucy,  wild 
clippers  against  Cape  Horn  howlers,  when  the  slightest 
misjudgment  meant  the  loss  of  a  spar,  or  loss  of  one 
hour  —  which  was  more  important.  They  were  devoted 
to  the  rigid  traditions  of  the  quarterdeck.  The  cap- 
tain gave  all  his  orders  through  the  first  officer,  except 
for  putting  the  ship  about;  and  lived  in  a  more  digni- 
fied seclusion  than  the  colonel  of  a  regiment  in  a  fron- 
tier garrison.  No  one  spoke  to  him  unless  spoken  to; 
the  weather  side  of  the  quarterdeck  was  his  private 
walk;  whole  voyages  passed  without  a  scrap  of  con- 
versation between  master  and  officers,  except  in  line 
of  duty.  Men  at  the  head  of  the  profession  like  Captain 
Dumaresq  were  paid  three  thousand  dollars  for  an 
outward  passage  to  San  Francisco,  and  five  thousand 
if  they  made  it  under  a  hundred  days. 

Occasionally,  clipper-ship  commanders  took  their 
wives  with  them.  Mrs.  Cressy  was  the  constant  com- 
panion of  her  husband  on  the  Flying  Cloud.  The  wife 
of  Captain  Charles  H.  Brown  gave  birth  to  a  son 
during  a  North  Pacific  gale,  when  the  Black  Prince 
was  flying  under  close-reefed  topsails.  Immediately 
after,  a  heavy  sea  burst  in  the  after  cabin  deadlight, 
shooting  clear  over  the  box  in  which  the  new-born 
babe  was  lying.  But  most  remarkable  of  these  brave 
women  of  the  sea  was  Mrs.  Captain  Patten,  of  the 
Neptune's  Car.  In  the  midst  of  a  Cape  Horn  gale 
Captain  Patten  came  down  with  brain  fever.  The 
first  mate  was  in  irons  for  insubordination ;  the  second 
mate  was  ignorant  of  navigation.  But  Mrs.  Patten 
had  made  herself  mistress  of  the  art  during  a  previous 
voyage.  Without  question,  she  took  command.  For 
fifty-two  days  this  frail  little  Boston  woman  of  nine- 
teen years  navigated  a  great  clipper  of  eighteen  hun- 

351 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

dred  tons,  tending  her  husband  the  while;  and  took 
both  safely  into  San  Francisco.1 


* 

* 


Yankee  workmen  built  the  clipper  ships,  but  they 
were  not  manned  by  Americans.  The  Yankee  mariner, 
with  his  neat  clothes  and  perfect  seamanship,  had 
passed  into  history  by  1850.  Few  Americans  could 
then  be  found  in  the  forecastles  of  merchantmen  on 
deep  waters.  When  did  this  change  take  place?  Why 
did  New  Englanders  abandon  the  sea? 

In  part,  no  doubt,  it  was  a  question  of  status.  The 
seaman  was  not  as  free  as  other  workmen.  His  per- 
sonal liberty  was  suspended  until  the  end  of  the  voyage. 
Discipline  was  more  severe,  brutality  more  common, 
and  redress  more  difficult  to  obtain  than  in  other  call- 
ings. Laws  forbidding  such  practices  as  flogging,  and 
humane  judges  such  as  Peleg  Sprague,  of  the  District 
Court  at  Boston,  could  do  little  to  alter  the  tradition 
of  centuries.  In  one  of  his  notable  decisions,2  Judge 
Sprague  remarked: 

Seamen,  in  general,  have  little  confidence  in  the  justice  of  those 
whom  circumstances  have  placed  above  them,  and  there  is  too  much 
ground  for  this  feeling.  If  a  seaman  is  wronged  by  a  subordinate 
officer,  and  makes  a  complaint  to  the  master,  it  too  often  happens 
that  he  not  only  can  obtain  no  hearing  or  redress,  but  brings  upon 
himself  further  and  greater  ill  treatment;  and  an  appeal  to  an 
American  consul  against  a  master  is  oftentimes  no  more  successful, 
pre-occupied,  as  that  officer  is  likely  to  be,  by  the  representations  and 
influence  of  the  master.  Upon  his  return  home,  he  finds  those  whom 
he  has  served,  the  owners  of  the  ship,  generally  take  part,  at  once, 

1  Incredible  as  it  may  seem,  Mrs.  Patten's  age  is  confirmed  by  the 
Boston  marriage  records,  which  give  her  age  as  sixteen  when  she  married 
Captain  Patten  on  April  i,  1853.  She  was  Mary  A.  Brown,  daughter  of 
George  Brown,  of  Boston. 

*  Swain  v.  Rowland  (1858),  I  Sprague,  427. 

352 


o> 

" 


THE  CLIPPER  SHIP 

with  the  officer,  in  every  controversy  with  the  seamen,  and  not  in- 
frequently exerting  themselves  to  intercept  that  justice  which  the 
law  would  give  him.  And  if  to  all  this  be  added  peculiar  severity, 
even  by  the  law  of  his  country, ...  he  may  well  be  excused  for  feel- 
ing little  confidence  in  the  justice  of  superior  powers.  This  feeling 
enters  into  his  character,  adds  to  his  recklessness,  weakens  the  ties 
that  bind  him  to  his  country,  and  tends  to  make  him  a  vagrant 
citizen  of  the  world. 

Our  clipper  ships  were,  in  fact,  manned  by  an  interna- 
tional proletariat  of  the  sea,  vagrants  with  an  attitude 
curiously  similar  to  that  of  the  casual  workers  in  the 
West  to-day. 

Low  wages,  even  more  than  low  status,  were  re- 
sponsible for  this  condition.  In  Federalist  days  an 
able  seaman  received  eighteen  dollars  a  month  on 
Pacific  voyages,  and  even  more  in  neutral  trading.  In 
comparison  with  shore  wages,  and  in  lack  of  other 
opportunities,  this  was  sufficient  to  attract  Yankee 
youngsters  to  sea,  though  not  to  keep  them  there. 
During  the  slack  period  that  followed  the  War  of  1812, 
twelve  dollars  became  the  standard  wage.  An  increase 
of  tonnage  in  the  thirties  required  more  seamen.  In- 
stead of  raising  wages,  to  compete  with  the  machine- 
shops  and  railroads  and  Western  pioneering  that  were 
attracting  young  Yankees,  the  shipowners  maintained 
or  even  depressed  them,  until  ordinary  and  able  seamen 
on  California  clippers  received  from  eight  to  twelve 
dollars  a  month.1  In  the  New  Orleans  cotton  trade, 
and  other  lines  of  commerce  out  of  Boston,  as  high  as 
eighteen  dollars  was  paid  for  able  seamen,  and  the 
Liverpool  'packet-rats'  got  even  more  for  their  short 
and  stormy  runs.  But  in  a  period  of  rising  costs  and 
wages,  the  seaman's  wage  remained  stationary,  or  de- 
clined. He  had  "no  Sunday  off  soundings,"  and  his 

1  Yet  in  1856  Boston  ship-carpenters  and  caulkers  received  $3  for  a 
6J  hour  day;  longshoremen,  $2  per  tide;  stevedores,  25  cents  per  hour. 

353 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

calling  was  the  most  dangerous  in  the  world.  It  took 
strength,  skill,  and  courage  to  furl  topsails  on  a  great 
clipper  ship,  with  its  masts  and  eighty-foot  yards  bend- 
ing like  whalebone  in  a  River  Plate  pampero,  great 
blocks  beating  about  like  flails,  and  the  No.  O.  Lowell 
duck  sails  slatting  with  enough  force  to  crush  a  man's 
ribs. 

Americans  would  not  willingly  accept  such  wages 
for  such  work.  Coasting  vessels,  paying  eighteen  dol- 
lars a  month,  absorbed  the  Yankee  boys  with  a  crav- 
ing for  the  sea.  The  shipowners  could  have  obtained 
American  crews  had  they  been  willing  to  pay  for 
them;  but  they  were  not.  Like  the  factory  owners, 
they  preferred  cheap  foreign  labor. 

A  law  of  1817  required  two- thirds  of  an  American 
crew  to  be  American  citizens.  But  this  law  was  dis- 
regarded, as  soon  as  it  became  the  shipowners'  interest 
to  do  so ;  and  by  the  clipper  period  it  was  a  dead  letter. 
Captain  Clark  once  had  a  Chinese  cook  who  shipped 
as  "George  Harrison  of  Charlestown,  Mass."  When 
applicants  for  foremast  berths  became  fewer,  the  ship- 
owner had  recourse  to  shipping  agencies,  which  turned 
to  the  sailors'  boarding-house  keepers,  making  it  their 
interest  to  rob  and  drug  seamen  in  order  to  sign  them 
on,  and  pocket  their  three  months'  advance  wages. 
Thus  began  the  system  of  crimping  or  shanghaiing. 
The  percentage  of  foreigners  and  incompetents  in- 
creased. Men  of  all  nations,1  an.d  of  the  most  depraved 

1  A  sample  crew  is  that  of  the  ship  Reindeer,  Canton  to  Boston:  2 
Frenchmen,  I  Portuguese,  I  Cape  Verde  Islander,  I  Azores  man,  I 
Italian,  I  Dutchman,  I  Mulatto,  2  Kanakas,  I  Welshman,  I  Swede,  2 
Chinese,  and  2  Americans.  (Boston  Atlas,  July  22,  1851.)  The  Black 
Prince  had  even  foreign  officers.  Captain  Brown  was  a  Portuguese  by 
birth;  the  chief  mate  was  Danish,  the  2d  British,  the  3d  German,  and 
out  of  24  able  seamen  there  were  but  two  Americans;  one  from  Newbury- 
port  and  one  from  Boston. 

354 


THE  CLIPPER  SHIP 

and  criminal  classes,  some  of  them  sailors,  but  many 
not,  were  hoisted,  literally  dead  to  the  world,  aboard 
the  clippers.  Habitual  drunkards  formed  the  only 
considerable  native  element  in  this  human  hash.  "It 
is  perfectly  well  known  that  sailors  do  get  intoxicated," 
said  Judge  Sprague,  when  a  pious  captain  discharged 
a  seaman  for  a  drunken  frolic.  "Masters  hire  them 
with  this  knowledge,  .  .  .  owners  get  their  services  at 
a  less  price  for  these  very  habits;  year  after  year  they 
serve  at  a  mere  pittance  because  of  them."  Many  a 
landsman,  as  well,  imbibed  too  much  liquor  on  the 
Boston  water-front,  and  awoke  in  the  forecastle  of  a 
clipper  ship  bound  round  the  world. 

Whenever  a  Yankee  boy  had  the  nerve  to  go  to  sea 
under  these  conditions,  and  the  pluck  to  stick  it  out  in 
such  company,  he  was  assured  of  quick  promotion. 
Arthur  H.  Clark,  the  historian  of  the  clipper-ship  era, 
was  the  son  of  a  Boston  Mediterranean  merchant  and 
yachtsman.  Instead  of  going  to  Harvard,  he  went  to 
sea  before  the  mast  in  the  clipper  ship  Black  Prince, 
returned  around  the  globe,  over  two  years  later,  as  her 
third  mate,  and  then  shipped  as  second  mate  of  the 
Northern  Light.  A  few  more  voyages,  and  he  became 
a  shipmaster.  Henry  Jackson  Sargent,  Jr.,  of  the 
Gloucester  family  that  has  produced  such  eminent 
writers  and  artists,  shipped  before  the  mast  at  the 
age  of  seventeen  on  the  Flying  Fish,1  the  only  ship 
except  the  Flying  Cloud  which  made  two  California 
voyages  under  one  hundred  days.  Within  a  few  years 
he  was  not  only  the  youngest,  but  one  of  the  most  ac- 
complished clipper-ship  commanders.  The  Medford- 
built  clipper  Phantom,  under  his  command  but  through 
no  fault  of  his  own,  ran  on  the  Prates  Shoal  in  thick, 

1  Flying  Fish,  207'  x  39'  6"  x  22',  1506  tons;  built  by  Donald  McKay 
in  1851. 

355 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

heavy  weather  on  July  12,  1862.  All  hands  were 
saved  in  the  boats,  although  not  all  escaped  a  plunder- 
ing by  Chinese  pirates.  Obtaining  another  command 
in  China,  at  the  age  of  twenty-nine,  Captain  Sargent 
sailed  from  Shanghai,  and  was  never  heard  from 
again.  To  this  day,  the  Pacific  holds  the  secret  of  his 
fate  and  that  of  his  vessel. 

If  a  mate  found  one  or  two  boys  such  as  these,  be- 
side the  twoscore  drugged  and  drunken  bums,  loafers, 
and  rare  seamen  of  all  nations  and  colors  delivered  him 
by  the  crimp,  he  thanked  his  stars  for  it,  and  gave 
them  separate  quarters.  For  this  system  did  not  even 
deliver  sailors,  except  by  accident.  Of  his  crew  in  the 
Flying  Cloud's  race  with  the  N.  B.  Palmer,  Captain 
Cressy  said :  "  They  worked  like  one  man,  and  that  man 
a  hero."  But  in  every  crew  shipped  under  the  shanghai 
method  there  were  bound  to  be  men  fit  only  '  to  keep 
the  bread  from  moulding.'  Resenting  their  involun- 
tary servitude,  many  did  their  best  to  'soger';  to  be 
'  yard-arm  f urlers '  and  '  buntline  reefers '  —  in  other 
words,  malingerers.  Others  watched  their  chance  to 
start  a  mutiny;  and  yet  others,  who  tried  to  do  their 
duty,  seemed  shirkers  because  of  their  ignorance  of 
English.  Hence  the  brutality  for  which  Yankee  mates 
and  masters  became  notorious.1  There  were  clipper 
ships  like  the  Northern  Light,  where  no  hand  was  ever 
raised  against  the  men,  but  aboard  most  of  them,  after 
Congress  forbade  sailors  to  be  'triced  up'  and  'intro- 
duced to  the  gunner's  daughter'  or  cat  o'  nine  tails, 

1  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  practical  English  author  of  The 
Mate  and  his  Duties  (Liverpool,  1855)  says:  "It  is  acknowledged  by  all 
parties  that  they  have  much  better  discipline  in  American  ships  than 
we  have  . . .  human  nature  is  not  allowed  to  ooze  over,  being  always  in 
check  by  the  fear  of  immediate  chastisement."  He  deplores  the  presence 
of  apprentices  on  English  vessels,  as  they  enable  Jack  to  shirk  certain 
duties  as  "boy's  work." 

356 


{y     TO 

£  S 

05    g 

i-T  ° 


W     00 

-    " 


cS  4; 


THE  CLIPPER  SHIP 

discipline  was  only  kept  by  heavy  and  full  portions  of 
'  belaying-pin  soup'  and  'handspike  hash.' 

As  the  men  were  usually  stripped  of  all  they  had  by 
the  crimps,  they  were  forced  to  buy  clothing  on  board 
from  the  slop-chest;  and  as  the  crimp  had  pocketed 
their  three  months'  advance  wages,  they  usually 
ended  the  voyage  destitute  or  in  debt.  Then  began 
another  segment  of  the  vicious  circle,  Jack  pawning 
his  body  for  food,  shelter,  and  drink,  and  awakening 
with  an  aching  head  on  board  another  ship,  outward 
bound. 

Various  were  the  remedies  proposed.  A  committee 
of  the  Boston  Marine  Society,  consisting  of  Boston's 
most  respected  shipowners,  petitioned  Congress  in 
1852  to  restore  flogging  —  as  if  the  'cat'  would  at- 
tract Americans  to  sea!  Captains  John  Codman  and 
R.  B.  Forbes  wanted  an  apprentice  or  school-ship 
system,  which  the  same  Marine  Society  had  rejected 
many  years  before.  Improvements  were  made  in  food 
and  housing;  the  clipper  ships  had  a  deckhouse  for 
their  foremast  hands,  instead  of  the  dark,  stuffy  fore- 
castle of  older  vessels;  and  comparatively  good  food, 
with  hot  tea  and  coffee,  was  served.  But  no  one  sug- 
gested the  experiment  of  attracting  Americans  to  sea 
by  decent  wages  and  a  freeman's  status.  New  Eng- 
landers  have  more  maritime  aptitude  than  other 
Americans;  but  they  are  not  a  maritime  people  like 
the  British  or  Scandinavians  or  Greeks,  content  to 
serve  a  lifetime  before  the  mast  for  a  mere  pittance. 
The  days  were  long  past  when  Massachusetts  boys 
had  to  choose  between  farming  at  home  and  seafaring 
abroad.  In  1850  the  workshops  of  New  England 
needed  men,  and  the  great  West  was  calling. 


* 

357 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

"The  California  passage  is  the  longest  and  most 
tedious  within  the  domains  of  Commerce;  many  are 
the  vicissitudes  that  attend  it,"  wrote  Lieutenant 
Maury.  "It  tries  the  patience  of  the  navigator,  and 
taxes  his  energies  to  the  very  utmost. ...  It  is  a  great 
race-course,  upon  which  some  of  the  most  beautiful 
trials  of  speed  the  world  ever  saw  have  come  off." 

Every  passage  from  New  York  or  Boston  to  San 
Francisco  was  a  race  against  time,  on  which  the  build- 
er's and  master's  reputation  depended ;  and  there  were 
some  remarkable  ship-to-ship  contests  over  this  fifteen- 
thousand-mile  course.  One  of  the  best  took  place  in 
1854,  between  the  Romance  of  the  Seas,1  Captain 
Dumaresq,  and  the  David  Brown,  Captain  George 
Brewster.  The  Romance,  sailing  from  Boston  two 
days  after  her  New  York  rival  passed  Sandy  Hook, 
caught  up  with  her  off  the  coast  of  Brazil,  and  kept 
her  in  sight  a  good  part  of  the  passage  to  the  Golden 
Gate,  which  both  entered  side-by-side  on  March  23, 
respectively  ninety-six  and  ninety-eight  days  out. 
After  discharging,  they  passed  out  in  company,  set 
skysails  and  royal  studdingsails,  and  kept  them  set  for 
forty-five  days,  when  the  Romance  entered  Hong  Kong 
one  hour  in  the  lead. 

As  California  afforded  no  outward  lading  in  the 
early  fifties,  the  clipper  ships  generally  returned  around 
the  world,  by  way  of  China.  There  they  came  into 
competition  with  British  vessels,  and  the  result  gave 
John  Bull  a  worse  shock  than  the  yacht  America's 
victory.  So  vastly  superior  was  the  speed  of  the 
American  clippers,  that  British  firms  in  Hong  Kong 

1  Romance  of  the  Seas,  240'  8"  x  34'  6"  x  20',  1782  tons;  built  by 
Donald  McKay  in  1853  for  G.  B.  Upton.  The  David  Brown,  1715  tons, 
was  built  the  same  year  by  Roosevelt  &  Joyce,  New  York,  for  A.  A.  Low 
&  Brother. 

358 


THE  CLIPPER  SHIP 

paid  them  seventy-five  cents  per  cubic  foot  freight  on 
teas  to  London,  as  against  twenty-eight  cents  to  their 
own  ships. 

Crack  British  East-Indiamen  humbly  awaited  a 
cargo  in  the  treaty-ports  for  weeks  on  end,  while  one 
American  clipper  after  another  sailed  proudly  in,  and 
secured  a  return  freight  almost  before  her  topsails 
were  furled.  When  the  Yankee  beauties  arrived  in  the 
Thames,  their  decks  were  thronged  with  sight-seers, 
their  records  were  written  up  in  the  leading  papers, 
and  naval  draughtsmen  took  off  their  lines  while  in 
dry-dock. 

By  the  time  the  British  builders  were  learning  the 
first  rudiments  of  clipper  designing,  the  Americans  had 
made  still  further  progress.  As  to  a  cathedral  builder 
of  the  thirteenth  century,  so  to  Donald  McKay  came 
visions  transcending  human  experience,  with  the  power 
to  transmute  them  into  reality.  The  public  believed 
he  had  reached  perfection  with  the  Flying  Cloud;  but 
in  1852  he  created  the  Sovereign  of  the  Seas.1  She  had 
the  longest  and  sharpest  ends  of  any  vessel  yet  built. 
Her  widest  point  was  twenty  feet  forward  of  amid- 
ships, and  her  figure-head  showed  a  bronze  mer-king, 
blowing  a  conch  shell.  No  merchant  shipowner,  even 
in  that  era  of  adventure,  dared  order  such  a  vessel. 
Her  building  was  financed  by  McKay's  loyal  friends. 
But  so  convincing  was  her  appearance,  that  immedi- 
ately after  launching  she  was  sold  for  the  record  price 
of  $150,000,  almost  all  of  which  she  earned  in  freight 
on  her  first  round  voyage. 

Lauchlan  McKay,  who,  thirty-four  years  before 
had  helped  his  brother  Donald  build  their  first  boat 

1  Sovereign  of  the  Seas,  258'  2"  X  44'  7"  X  23'  6",  2421  tons.  The 
Westward  Hot,  214'  x  40'  8"  x  23'  6",  1650  tons,  was  built  by  Donald 
McKay  the  same  year,  for  Sampson  &  Tappan,  of  Boston. 

359 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

in  Nova  Scotia,  commanded  this  great  vessel  on  her 
maiden  voyage  to  San  Francisco.  Starting  in  the  un- 
favorable month  of  August,  the  Sovereign  of  the  Seas 
encountered  southwest  gales  from  the  Falklands  to 
Cape  Horn.  Topmasts  bent  like  whips  to  the  fearful 
snow  squalls,  yet  nothing  carried  away,  and  the  noble 
ship  never  wore  nor  missed  stays  once  in  the  long  beat 
to  windward.  Around  the  Horn  she  found  no  better 
weather,  and  in  the  course  of  a  heavy  gale,  owing  to 
the  main  topmast  trestle-trees  settling,  her  main  top- 
mast, mizzen  topgallantmast,  and  foretopsail  yard 
went  over  the  side.  Luckily,  the  captain  was  an  expert 
rigger,  and  had  an  unusually  large  crew.  Within  thirty 
hours  he  had  the  Sovereign  under  jury  rig,  doing 
twelve  knots.  And  in  twelve  days'  time,  by  working 
day  and  night,  she  was  almost  as  well  rigged  as  when 
she  left  Boston.  In  spite  of  these  mishaps  she  "beat 
the  clipper  fleet"  that  sailed  with  her,  and  entered 
San  Francisco  one  hundred  and  three  days  out  of  New 
York;  the  fastest  passage  ever  made  by  a  ship  leaving 
the  Atlantic  coast  in  August. 

On  the  homeward  passage  from  Honolulu,  with  a 
cargo  of  oil  and  whalebone,  a  short  crew,  a  foretopmast 
sprung  in  two  places,  and  a  tender  maintopmast, 
Captain  McKay  "passed  through  a  part  of  the  Great 
South  Sea,  which  has  been  seldom  traversed  by  trad- 
ers." In  the  forties  and  fifties  south  latitude,  a  long, 
rolling  swell  and  the  northwest  tradewinds  hurled 
the  Sovereign  of  the  Seas  one  quarter  of  the  distance 
around  the  world  —  5391  nautical  miles  —  in  twenty- 
two  days.  One  sea  day  (March  17-18,  1853)  was  mem- 
orable above  all  others.  Sun  and  moon  appeared  only 
in  brief  glimpses.  Heavy  rain  squalls  tore  down  the 
wind,  whipping  to  a  white  froth  the  crests  of  enormous 
seas  that  went  roaring  southward  —  but  not  much 

360 


CLIPPER  SHIP  SOVEREIGN  OF  THE  SEAS 


CLIPPER  SHIP  WESTWARD  HO! 


THE  CLIPPER  SHIP 

faster  than  their  Sovereign.  When  struck  by  a  squall 
she  would  send  spray  masthead  high,  fly  up  a  point  or 
two,  and  heeling  over  try  to  take  her  helm  and  shoot 
along  a  deep  valley  between  two  towering  rollers. 
Brought  to  her  course  again,  she  would  righten  with 
the  poise  of  a  thoroughbred,  and  leap  forward  as  if 
taking  a  fresh  start.  On  that  day  the  Sovereign  of  the 
Seas  made  411  nautical  miles; l  an  average  of  17.7 
knots,  and  a  day's  run  surpassed  only  thrice:  by  the 
Red  Jacket,  and  by  two  other  creations  of  Donald 
McKay. 

For  the  year  1853,  Donald  McKay  made  another 
sensation  with  the  Great  Republic.  To  appreciate  her 
size,  recall  that  any  vessel  over  130  feet  long  and  500 
tons  burthen  was  considered  large  before  1840;  that 
the  Stag-Hound,  1534  tons,  was  the  first  sailing  ship 
built  over  two  hundred  feet  long;  that  the  Flying 
Cloud  was  229  feet  long  and  registered  1793  tons,  and 
the  Sovereign  of  the  Seas,  258  feet  and  2421  tons.  The 
Great  Republic  was  334  feet,  6  inches  long,  and  regis- 
tered 4556  tons.  Fifty-three  feet,  six  inches  broad,  and 
thirty-eight  feet  deep,  she  was  as  sharp  and  shapely  a 
clipper  ship  as  any  ever  built.  No  vessel,  before  or 
since,  has  had  such  enormous  spars  and  sail  area.  Her 
main  yard  was  120  feet  long;  her  fore  skysail  yard, 
40  feet.  In  addition  to  her  three  square-rigged  masts 
she  carried  a  spanker-mast  with  gaff-topsail  and 
gaff-topgallantsail.  The  leech  and  bolt-ropes  of  the 
topsails  were  eight-and-a-half-inch,  and  the  fore  and 

1  According  to  the  abstract  of  her  log,  printed  in  Maury's  Sailing 
Directions,  6th  ed.,  757.  Yet  in  Lieutenant  Maury's  letter  of  May  10, 
1853,  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  (reprinted  in  R.  B.  Forbes,  Ships  of 
the  Past,  27)  he  states  that  the  greatest  day's  run  of  this  passage  was 
"362  knots  or  419  statute  miles."  Captain  Clark  (p.  220)  follows  the 
log's  record  of  411  miles,  which,  on  account  of  her  easting  made  during 
the  day,  is  equivalent  to  424  nautical  miles  in  twenty-four  hours. 

361 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS  ' 

main  standing  rigging,  twelve-and-a-half-inch  four- 
stranded  Russia  hemp. 

The  Great  Republic's  sails,  which  would  have  cov- 
ered over  one  and  a  half  acres  if  laid  out  flat,1  were 
never  set.  She  was  towed  to  New  York,  where,  on  the 
eve  of  her  maiden  voyage,  she  caught  fire,  and  had  to 
be  scuttled  to  prevent  total  loss.  Salvaged,  razeed 
to  3357  tons,  and  under  greatly  reduced  rig,  she  made 
a  voyage  of  ninety-two  days  to  San  Francisco.  What 
wonders  of  speed  might  this  ship  of  ships  have  per- 
formed, as  Donald  McKay  built  and  rigged  her! 

The  Great  Republic  had  been  destined  for  the  Aus- 
tralian trade,  whither  British  adventure  and  emigra- 
tion were  now  tending,  following  a  discovery  of  gold. 
The  Sovereign  of  the  Seas,  appearing  in  Liverpool  in 
July,  1853,  was  immediately  chartered  by  James 
Baines  &  Co.'s  Australian  Black  Ball  Line,  which 
charged  £7  a  ton  freight  in  her  to  Melbourne,  and 
offered  to  return  £2  of  it  if  she  did  not  beat  every 
steamer  on  the  route.  Baines  kept  the  money.  The 
White  Star  Line,  not  to  be  outdone,  chartered  three 
great  clipper  ships  —  McKay's  Chariot  of  Fame, 
Jackson's  Blue  Jacket,  and  the  Red  Jacket,  designed 
by  Samuel  H.  Pook  and  built  by  George  Thomas  at 
Rockland,  Maine.  On  her  passage  from  New  York  to 
Liverpool  the  Red  Jacket,  Asa  Eldridge  master,  broke 
the  record  for  that  route,  with  rain,  hail,  or  snow 
falling  throughout  the  entire  trip;  and  made  a  day's 
run  of  413  nautical  miles.  Her  first  Australian  voyage 
was  so  remarkable  that  she  was  purchased  by  her 
British  charterers  for  thirty  thousand  pounds  sterling. 
James  Baines  &  Co.  then  went  one  better,  and  con- 
tracted with  Donald  McKay  for  four  great  clipper 
ships  over  two  thousand  tons,  which  he  completed 

1  151683  running  yards. 
362 


THE  CLIPPER  SHIP 

in  the  year  between  February,  1854,  a°d  February, 


With  this  group,  the  Lightning,1  Champion  of  the 
Seas,2  James  Baines,*  and  Donald  McKay,*  American 
shipbuilding  reached  its  apogee.  The  James  Baines, 
on  her  way  across,  made  the  record  transatlantic  pas- 
sage for  sailing  vessels,  twelve  days,  six  hours  from 
Boston  Light  to  Rock  Light,  Liverpool.  "She  is  so 
strongly  built,  so  finely  finished,  and  is  of  so  beauti- 
ful a  model,"  wrote  a  contemporary  from  Liverpool, 
"that  even  envy  cannot  prompt  a  fault  against  her. 
On  all  hands  she  has  been  praised  as  the  most  perfect 
sailing  ship  that  ever  entered  the  river  Mersey."  The 
portrait  shows  her  powerful  hull,  with  a  row  of  ports 
along  the  passenger  quarters;  and  her  enormous  rig, 
second  only  to  the  Great  Republic's.  In  addition  to 
three  skysails,  she  carried  skysail  studdingsails  and  a 
main  moonsail.  When  under  way  with  thirty-four 
sails  set,  as  a  steamship  once  reported  her  in  1857 
(and  remember,  she  had  single  topsails  and  topgallant- 
sails)  ,  the  James  Baines  might  well  have  inspired  Walt 
Whitman's  "The  Ship": 

Lo!  The  unbounded  sea! 

On  its  breast  a  Ship,  spreading  all  her  sails  —  an  ample  Ship, 

carrying  even  her  moonsails; 
The  pennant  is  flying  aloft,  as  she  speeds,  she  speeds  so  stately  — 

below,  emulous  waves  press  forward, 
They  surround  the  Ship,  with  shining  curving  motions  and  foam.5 

Owing  to  Matthew  F.  Maury's  discoveries,  vessels 

1  Lightning,  243'  X  42'  8"  X  23',  2084  tons. 

1  Champion  of  the  Seas,  252'  x  45'  6"  x  29',  2448  tons. 

1  James  Baines,  266'  x  44'  7"  X  29',  2515  tons. 

*  Donald  McKay,  260'  6"  x  46'  x  29',  2595  tons. 

•  From  "Drum  Taps,"  1865.  Walt  afterwards  marred  this  poem,  for 
nautical  readers,  by  inserting  'starting'  after  'Ship'  in  the  title,  and  the 
second  line. 

363 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

en  route  to  Australia  now  made  48°  south  latitude  be- 
fore running  their  easting  down,  and  let  the  brave 
west  winds  sweep  them  around  the  world.  The 
James  Baines  in  1855  went  from  Liverpool  to  Liver- 
pool in  132  days,  omitting  her  stay  at  Melbourne.  No 
sailing  vessel  ever  equaled  this  record. 

The  Donald  McKay,  on  her  maiden  voyage  to 
Liverpool,  made  a  day's  run  of  421  miles,  mostly  under 
topsails  and  foresail.  But  this  record  had  already  been 
surpassed  by  the  Lightning.  The  most  remarkable  of 
this  group  of  McKay  clippers,  built  long  and  low,  with 
the  most  daringly  fine  and  hollow  bow  ever  constructed, 
the  Lightning  looked  her  name  of  irresistible  strength 
and  unsurpassed  speed.  With  mingled  pride  and  regret 
Boston  saw  her  glide  down  the  harbor  under  a  foreign 
flag,  making  scarce  a  ripple  in  the  water  as  her  topsails 
caught  a  light  land-breeze.  But  on  this  maiden  pas- 
sage to  Liverpool,  as  if  to  honor  the  land  that  gave  her 
birth,  the  Lightning  made  the  greatest  day's  run  ever 
performed  by  sailing  vessel ;  a  day's  run  that  no  steam- 
ship at  that  day  could  equal  by  a  hundred  miles,  that 
no  steamship  equaled  for  a  generation,  and  that  barely 
fifty  ocean  steamers  to-day  could  surpass.  It  began 
about  five  hundred  miles  off  the  Irish  coast  in  latitude 
52°  38'  N.,  longitude  22°  45'  W.;  and  here  is  the  log 
of  it: 

March  1st.  Wind  south.  Strong  gales;  bore  away 
for  the  North  Channel,  carried  away  the  fore  topsail 
and  lost  jib;  hove  the  log  several  times  and  found  the 
ship  going  through  the  water  at  the  rate  of  eighteen 
to  eighteen  and  one  half  knots;  lee  rail  under  water, 
and  rigging  slack.  Distance  run  in  twenty-four  hours, 
Jour  hundred  and  thirty-six  miles. 


CLIPPER  SHIP  LIGHTNING 


CLIPPER  SHIP  JAMES  BAINES 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

CONCLUSION 
1857-1860 

THE  clipper  ships,  costly  to  build  and  to  operate  for 
their  burthen,  proved  prodigal  ventures  on  routes  that 
paid  normal  freights.  David  Snow,  of  Boston,  tried 
his  clipper  ship  Reporter1  in  the  Boston-New  Orleans- 
Liverpool  trade  in  1853;  but  as  Captain  Octavius 
Howe  wrote,  she  was  a  "  thousand- ton  ship  in  capacity 
and  a  two  thousand-ton  ship  to  keep  in  repair."  The 
pleasure  of  having  the  smartest  vessel  on  that  route 
did  not  compensate  for  losing  voyages,  and  the  Re- 
porter was  shifted  to  the  California  trade. 

By  1854  that  path  of  riches  yielded  but  normal 
profits,  and  1855  brought  the  end  of  the  clipper-ship 
era  in  shipbuilding ;  although  American  thoroughbreds 
won  the  sweepstakes  in  the  world's  carrying  trade 
until  the  Civil  War.  Donald  McKay,  after  completing 
his  Australian  Black  Ball  liners,  wisely  concluded  that 
the  limit  had  been  reached ;  and  the  three  or  four  clip- 
per ships  that  he  built  in  1855-56  were  of  the  medium 
class.  Nevertheless  the  era  left  its  impress  on  naval 
architecture.  No  more  bluff-bowed  vessels  of  the  an- 
cient model  were  built,  except  for  whaling.  A  type  of 
full-bodied  ship,  like  McKay's  Glory  of  the  Seas,  was 
evolved;  fuller  and  beamier  than  the  clipper  ship, 
less  boldly  rigged,  yet  with  that  clean  appearance, 
round  stern,  and  beautiful  rake  to  the  bow  which  make 
it  difficult  to  distinguish  from  the  genuine  clipper. 

1  Reporter,  207'  6"  x  39'  X  24'  6",  1474  tons;  built  by  Paul  Curtis  at 
East  Boston,  1853,  at  a  cost  of  $80,750. 

365 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

Throughout  the  clipper-ship  era,  nearly  all  the 
traditional  lines  of  Massachusetts  maritime  commerce 
continued  to  expand  and  new  ones  were  created ;  cod- 
fishing  and  whaling  attained  their  apogee,  and  the 
commercial  prosperity  of  Boston,  in  1857,  reached  its 
high- water  mark  for  the  ante-bellum  period.  The 
coffee  trade  with  South  America  declined,  owing  to 
the  establishment  of  steamship  lines  between  Europe 
and  Brazil;  the  Russia  trade  declined,  as  Russia's 
staple  exports  were  being  produced  to  a  great  extent 
in  the  United  States;  the  China  trade  continued  its 
migration  to  New  York;  but  all  others  increased 
greatly,  and  Boston  continued  to  hold  her  ancient 
supremacy  in  the  East-Indian,  Smyrna,  Mediterra- 
nean, and  South  American  wool  trades,  and  in  such 
Russian  trade  as  remained  profitable.1  Her  exports  of 
ice  more  than  doubled  between  1847  and  1856,  rum 
rose  from  four  hundred  thousand  to  over  one  million 
gallons,  and  three  times  as  many  boots  and  shoes  left 
the  port  as  ten  years  previously.  The  Boston  dry- 
goods  trade  with  the  West,  the  bulk  of  which  still 
went  by  water,  had  doubled  since  1854,  and  increased 
twenty-fold  over  1847.  Arrivals  from  foreign  ports  at 
Boston  increased  fifty  per  cent  between  1845  and  1856, 
and  their  tonnage  a  hundred  and  twenty  per  cent; 
even  Newburyport  and  Salem  showed  an  increase, 
owing  to  the  new  Canadian  trade. 

The  Canadian  Reciprocity  Treaty  of  1854  was  of 
more  benefit  to  Massachusetts  commerce  than  any 
treaty  before  or  since,  for  it  wiped  out  the  artificial 
barrier  which  limited  her  market  and  source  of  supply 
to  the  northward  and  eastward.   The  trade  was  con- 
ducted almost  exclusively  in  Canadian  bottoms,  which 
somewhat  obscured  its  benefits,  and  gave  that  increase 
1  See  statistics  of  arrivals  in  the  Appendix. 
366 


CONCLUSION 

to  the  statistics  of  foreign  sail  in  our  ports,  which  has 
been  made  so  much  of  by  ship-subsidy  pamphlets 
masquerading  as  histories  of  the  American  merchant 
marine.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  if  the  "Geordies"  and 
"Johnny  wood-boats,"  as  the  Yankees  called  the 
clumsy  down-East  schooners,  had  not  been  permitted 
free  access  to  our  ports,  the  Canadians  would  have 
made  Liverpool  their  entrepot  instead  of  Boston,  or 
developed  their  own  direct  export  trade  —  as  they 
afterwards  did,  when  the  reciprocity  treaty  was  abro- 
gated. From  Nova  Scotia  and  New  Brunswick  flowed 
a  constant  and  increasing  stream  of  firewood,  coal, 
fish,  flour,  provisions,  grain,  and  dairy  products  to 
Boston  and  the  Essex  County  ports,  where  the  '  blue- 
nose*  merchants  made  their  purchases  of  East-  and 
West-India  goods,  manufactures,  whaling  products, 
and  hides. 

Boston  now  had  the  facilities  and  the  materials  for 
an  export  trade  to  the  newer  countries,  to  California, 
Australia,  and  South  Africa.  New  England  manufac- 
tures, though  less  in  value,  were  then  much  more 
diversified  than  nowadays,  when  lines  such  as  beef- 
packing,  furniture,  and  vehicles  have  been  forced  to 
move  nearer  the  raw  materials.  Whatever  was  lacking 
came  from  other  parts  of  the  world  to  Boston  wharves. 
A  merchant  could  make  up  at  short  notice,  within 
half  a  mile  of  State  Street,  an  export  cargo  containing 
the  entire  apparatus  of  civilized  life,  from  cradles  and 
teething-rings  to  coffins  and  tombstones.  Of  such  na- 
ture were  the  outward  ladings  to  California,  Australia, 
and  Cape  Town  in  the  eighteen-fifties.  Ploughs  and 
printing-presses,  picks  and  shovels,  absinthe  and  rum, 
house-frames  and  grindstones,  clocks  and  dictionaries, 
melodeons  and  cabinet  organs,  fancy  biscuits  and 
canned  salmon,  oysters  and  lobsters;  in  fact  every- 

367 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

thing  one  can  imagine  went  through  Boston  on  its 
way  to  the  miners  and  ranchers  of  the  white  man's 
new  empires.  Henry  W.  Peabody  and  others  operated 
lines  of  Australian  packets,  which  brought  back  wool 
and  hides.1  Benjamin  C.  Pray  and  others  kept  a 
fleet  of  barques  plying  between  Boston  and  Cape 
Town,  Port  Elizabeth  and  East  London,  where  fifty 
years  before  the  only  American  trade  had  been  a 
little  smuggling  of  East-India  goods  on  homeward 
passages.  From  South  Africa  were  brought  wool, 
goatskins,  ostrich  feathers,  and,  after  1870,  diamonds.2 
The  California  trade  entered  a  new  phase  in  1855,  when 
the  Somerset-built  clipper  barque  Greenfield  took  the 
first  consignment  of  grain  from  San  Francisco,  and 
the  Newburyport-built  clipper  ship  Charmer  of  Boston 
took  a  full  cargo  of  California  wheat  to  New  York,  re- 
ceiving twenty-eight  dollars  a  ton  freight. 

In  September,  1857,  came  a  great  financial  crisis, 
which,  unlike  that  of  twenty  years  previous,  affected 
Boston  most  grievously.  The  East-India  merchants, 
anticipating  a  stoppage  of  trade  by  the  Sepoy  mutiny, 
had  glutted  the  Boston  market  with  Calcutta  goods. 
Prices  of  all  sorts  of  merchandise  fell  one-quarter  to 
one-half,  and  freights  sunk  until  it  paid  a  shipowner 
to  let  his  vessels  rot. 

For  two  years  ocean  freights  were  dull  and  business 
depressed.  The  Canadian  trade  alone  showed  con- 
spicuous progress.  By  1860  conditions  were  getting 
back  to  normal.  Of  the  world's  fleet  en  route  to  Aus- 
tralia in  January  of  that  year,  thirteen  ships  were 

1  Six  different  Australian  packet-lines,  none  of  them  operating  clipper 
ships,  announce  sailings  in  the  Boston  Daily  Advertiser  for  March  7, 
1853,  and  Oak  Hall  advertises  "clothing  manufactured  expressly  for  the 
Australian  and  California  markets." 

1  It  was  Benjamin  C.  Pray  who,  in  cooperation  with  a  Boston  jeweler, 
introduced  diamond-cutting  into  the  United  States. 

368 


CONCLUSION 

from  Boston,  as  against  twelve  ships  and  seven  barques 
from  New  York,  and  none  from  any  other  American 
port  save  San  Francisco.  The  merchants,  tardily  ap- 
preciating the  importance  of  steam  navigation,  built 
four  splendid  iron  screw  steamers  over  two  hundred 
feet  long,  for  two  new  lines  to  Charleston  and  New 
Orleans.1  The  sailing  fleet  found  better  employment 
than  in  any  year  since  1857.  Then  came  the  firing  on 
Fort  Sumter;  and  for  four  years  the  best  energies  of 
Massachusetts,  maritime  and  interior,  were  devoted  to 
preserving  the  Union. 


Every  great  war  has  brought  an  upheaval  in  Mas- 
sachusetts commerce;  some  for  the  better,  but  the 
Civil  War  conspicuously  for  the  worse.  Not  that  the 
Confederate  cruisers  were  responsible.  The  American 
merchant  marine  had  increased  and  prospered  during 
the  earlier  wars,  in  spite  of  depredations  infinitely 
greater  than  those  of  the  Alabama  and  her  consorts. 
So  prospered,  of  late,  the  British  marine,  despite  Ger- 
man under-sea  boats.  I  agree  with  John  R.  Spears 
that  the  decadence  of  American  shipping  "  was  wholly 
due  to  natural  causes  —  to  conditions  of  national 
development . . .  that  were  unavoidable."  The  Civil 
War  merely  hastened  a  process  that  had  already  begun, 
the  substitution  of  steam  for  sail.  It  was  the  ostrich- 
like  attitude  of  maritime  Massachusetts  toward  this 
process,  more  than  the  war,  by  which  she  lost  her  an- 
cient preeminence.  Far  better  had  the  brains  and  en- 

1  The  Massachusetts,  South  Carolina,  Merrimack,  and  Mississippi. 
They  were  designed  by  Samuel  H.  Pook  and  built  by  Harrison  Loring 
at  South  Boston  in  1860-61.  The  Merchants'  and  Miners'  Line  to  Nor- 
folk and  Baltimore,  founded  a  few  years  previously,  acquired  two  iron 
side- wheelers  in  1860,  and  the  Philadelphia  Line  was  also  improved. 

369 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

ergy  that,  produced  the  clipper  ships  been  put  into  the 
iron  screw  steamer  (in  the  same  sense  that  Phidias  had 
been  better  employed  in  sanitation,  and  Euripides  in 
discovering  the  printing  press).  After  Appomattox, 
national  expansion  and  the  protective  tariff  killed  or 
atrophied  many  lines  of  commerce  in  which  Massa- 
chusetts merchants  had  specialized;  and  the  trans- 
atlantic cable  made  merchants,  in  the  old  sense,  anach- 
ronisms. Several  firms  continued  the  carrying  trade 
profitably  in  sailing  vessels  for  some  years;  and  many 
remained  faithful  to  blue  water  for  the  rest  of  their 
lives.  But  it  was  Maine  rather  than  Massachusetts 
that  kept  the  flag  afloat  at  the  spanker-gaff  of  sailing 
ships.  The  era  of  tramp  steamers  and  four  or  five 
per  cent  profit  had  little  attraction  for  merchants  who 
could  gain  six  to  ten  per  cent  by  exploiting  the  great 
West.  Many  an  old  shipowner's  ledger,  that  begins 
with  tea  and  indigo  and  sixteenth-shares  of  the  ship 
Canton  Packet  and  brig  Owhyhee,  ends  up  by  record- 
ing large  blocks  of  C.  B.  &  Q.,  and  Calumet  &  Hecla. 


* 
*         * 


The  maritime  history  of  Massachusetts,  then,  as 
distinct  from  that  of  America,  ends  with  the  passing 
of  the  clipper.  'Twas  a  glorious  ending!  Never,  in 
these  United  States,  has  the  brain  of  man  conceived, 
or  the  hand  of  man  fashioned,  so  perfect  a  thing  as 
the  clipper  ship.  In  her,  the  long-suppressed  artistic 
impulse  of  a  practical,  hard-worked  race  burst  into 
flower.  The  Flying  Cloud  was  our  Rheims,  the  Sov- 
ereign of  the  Seas  our  Parthenon,  the  Lightning  our 
Amiens;  but  they  were  monuments  carved  from  snow. 
For  a  brief  moment  of  time  they  flashed  their  splendor 
around  the  world,  then  disappeared  with  the  sudden 

370 


CONCLUSION 

completeness  of  the  wild  pigeon.  One  by  one  they 
sailed  out  of  Boston,  to  return  no  more.  A  tragic  or 
mysterious  end  was  the  final  privilege  of  many,  fa- 
vored by  the  gods.  Others,  with  lofty  rig  cut  down 
to  cautious  dimensions,  with  glistening  decks  and  top- 
sides  scarred  and  neglected,  limped  about  the  seas 
under  foreign  flags,  like  faded  beauties  forced  upon 
the  street. 

The  master  builders,  reluctant  to  raise  barnyard 
fowls  where  once  they  had  reared  eagles,  dropped  off 
one  by  one.  Donald  McKay,  dying  almost  in  poverty 
after  a  career  that  should  have  brought  him  wealth 
and  honor,  sleeps  at  Newburyport  among  the  comrades 
of  his  young  manhood.  The  commonwealth,  so  gen- 
erous in  laurel  to  second-rate  politicians  and  third-rate 
soldiers,  contains  no  memorial  line  to  this  man  who 
helped  to  make  her  name  immortal.  But  in  the  elm 
branches  over  his  grave  the  brave  west  winds  that  he 
loved  so  well,  murmur  soft  versions  of  the  tunes  they 
once  played  on  the  shrouds  of  his  glorious  ships. 

Soon  he  will  be  joined  by  the  last  of  the  men  he 
knew  and  loved,  the  shipbuilders  and 

Sea-captains  young  or  old,  and  the  mates,  and  .  .  .  intrepid  sailors 
Pick'd  sparingly  without  noise  by  thee,  old  ocean,  chosen  by  thee,  .  .  . 
Suckled  by  thee,  old  husky  nurse,  embodying  thee, 
Indomitable,  untamed  as  thee. 


The  seaports  of  Massachusetts  have  turned  their 
backs  to  the  element  that  made  them  great,  save  for 
play  and  for  fishing;  Boston  alone  is  still  in  the  deep- 
sea  game.  But  all  her  modern  docks  and  terminals 
and  dredged  channels  will  avail  nothing,  if  the  spirit 
perish  that  led  her  founders  to  "trye  all  ports." 

371 


MARITIME  HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

Sicut  patribus  . . .  We  can  ask  no  more  here.  But 
in  that  unknown  harbor  toward  which  we  all  are 
scudding  may  our  eyes  behold  some  vision  like  that 
vouchsafed  our  fathers,  when  a  California  clipper  ship 
made  port  after  a  voyage  around  the  world. 

A  summer  day  with  a  sea-turn  in  the  wind.  The 
Grand  Banks  fog,  rolling  in  wave  after  wave,  is  dis- 
solved by  the  perfumed  breath  of  New  England  hay- 
fields  into  a  gentle  haze,  that  turns  the  State  House 
dome  to  old  gold,  films  brick  walls  with  a  soft  patina, 
and  sifts  blue  shadows  among  the  foliage  of  the  Com- 
mon elms.  Out  of  the  mist  in  Massachusetts  Bay 
comes  riding  a  clipper  ship,  with  the  effortless  speed 
of  an  albatross.  Her  proud  commander  keeps  skysails 
and  studdingsails  set  past  Boston  light.  After  the 
long  voyage  she  is  in  the  pink  of  condition.  Paint- 
work is  spotless,  decks  holystoned  cream-white, 
shrouds  freshly  tarred,  ratlines  square.  Viewed  through 
a  powerful  glass,  her  seizings,  flemish-eyes,  splices,  and 
pointings  are  the  perfection  of  the  old-time  art  of 
rigging.  The  chafing-gear  has  just  been  removed, 
leaving  spars  and  shrouds  immaculate.  The  boys 
touched  up  her  skysail  poles  with  white  paint,  as  she 
crossed  the  Bay.  Boom-ending  her  studdingsails  and 
hauling  a  few  points  on  the  wind  to  shoot  the  Narrows, 
between  Georges  and  Gallups  and  Lovells  Islands,  she 
pays  off  again  through  President  Road,  and  comes 
booming  up  the  stream,  a  sight  so  beautiful  that  even 
the  lounging  soldiers  at  the  Castle,  persistent  baiters 
of  passing  crews,  are  dumb  with  wonder  and  admira- 
tion. 

Colored  pennants  on  Telegraph  Hill  have  an- 
nounced her  coming  to  all  who  know  the  code.  Top- 
liff's  News  Room  breaks  into  a  buzz  of  conversation, 
comparing  records  and  guessing  at  freight  money; 

372 


CONCLUSION 


owners  and  agents  walk  briskly  down  State  Street; 
countingroom  clerks  hang  out  of  windows  to  watch 
her  strike  skysails  and  royals;  the  crimps  and  hussies 
of  Ann  Street  foregather,  to  offer  Jack  a  few  days' 
scabrous  pleasure  before  selling  him  to  a  new  master. 
By  the  time  the  ship  has  reached  the  inner  harbor, 
thousands  of  critical  eyes  are  watching  her  every 
movement,  quick  to  note  if  in  any  respect  the  mate  has 
failed  to  make  sailormen  out  of  her  crew  of  broken 
Argonauts,  beach-combers,  Kanakas,  and  Lascars. 

The  '  old  man '  stalks  the  quarterdeck  in  top  hat  and 
frock  coat,  with  the  proper  air  of  detachment;  but 
the  first  mate  is  as  busy  as  the  devil  in  a  gale  of  wind. 
Off  India  Wharf  the  ship  rounds  into  the  wind  with  a 
graceful  curve,  crew  leaping  into  the  rigging  to  furl 
topgallant  sails  as  if  shot  upward  by  the  blast  of  pro- 
fanity from  the  mate's  bull-like  throat.  With  backed 
topsails  her  way  is  checked,  and  the  cable  rattles  out 
of  the  chain  lockers  for  the  first  time  since  Shanghai. 
Sails  are  clewed  up.  Yards  are  braced  to  a  perfect 
parallel,  and  running  gear  neatly  coiled  down.  A  warp 
is  passed  from  capstan  to  stringer,  and  all  hands  on 
the  capstan-bars  walk  her  up  to  the  wharf  with  the 
closing  chantey  of  a  deep-sea  voyage : 
SOLO 


fc£ 


i.  O,     the  times  are    hard    and    the  wa  -   ges     low, 
CHORUS  SOLO 


Leave  her,  John  •  tty,    leave  her;     I'll  pack  my  bag    and 
CHORUS 


I 


go      be  -  low ;     Ifs    time  for     us      to  leave   her. 


APPENDIX 
I 

COD  AND  MACKEREL  FISHERIES  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

1837-1865 


Fishing  ports  of 

Vessels  fitted  out 

Value  of  catch 

Hands 
em- 
ployed 

Year 

No. 

Tonnage 

Cod 

Mackerel 

ESSEX  COUNTY, 
N.  of  Cape  Ann 

(1837 
{1855 
(1865 

151 

60 

83 

S.OIQ 
4,105 
4,245 

$50,048 
30,OOO 
42,606 

$150,647 
93,020 
108,988 

1,135 
705 
767 

CAPE  ANN 

(1837 

J  i»55 

(1865 

221 

347 
378 

9,824 
21,269 
25,836 

186,516 
346,850 
839,675 

335,566 
421,991 
2,259,150 

1,580 
3,177 

4,939 

NORTH  SHORE 

(1837 
JI855 
(1865 

I5i 
146 
80 

10,232 
11,184 
5,63i 

275,799 
471,249 
360,508 

33,950 
193,550 
47,925 

1,133 
991 

643 

BOSTON  BAY 

(1837 

JI855 

(  1865 

241 
109 
58 

15,281 

8,595 
2,969 

488,010 
4,500 
159,900 

478,407 
331,364 
241,482 

2,572 
1,264 
471 

SOUTH  SHORE 
(Cohasset  to 
Plymouth,  incl.) 

(1837 

}  1855 

(1865 

168 

100 

75 

11,302 

7,014 
5,36o 

187,214 
120,117 
337,720 

148,034 
75,698 
127,500 

1,418 

893 
706 

CAPE  COD 

(1837 

51855 
(1865 

359 
376 
314 

21,280 

26,757 
50,166 

392,772 
443,869 
976,328 

490,638 

450,984 
1,169,074 

3,371 

3,389 
3,832 

375 


APPENDIX:  STATISTICS 

II 

ANNUAL  AVERAGES  OF  MASSACHUSETTS  WHALING 
INDUSTRY,  AT  THREE  EARLY  PERIODS1 


Number  of  vessels 
annually  fitted 

Tonnage 

Gallons  of  oil  brought 
in 

out  for 

Average  per 

Total 

Northern 
fishery 

Southern 
fishery 

Sperm 

Whole 

No. 

So. 

1771-75 

183 

121 

27,840 

75 

"5 

1,250,785 

272,475 

1787-89 

91 

31 

IO.2IO 

64 

142 

251,370 

413,595 

1803-06 

30 

9,360 

312 

395,640" 

677,422  * 

1  Tables  for  the  first  two  periods  are  compiled  from  those  in  Pitkin,  Statistical  View 
(1816  ed.),  78-79;  for  1803-06,  the  best  years  of  the  Federalist  period,  from  the  tables 
in  the  appendix  to  W.  S.  Tower,  History  of  American  Whaling  Industry.  The  only  Massa- 
chusetts ports  fitting  out  whalers  between  1803  and  1806  were  Nantucket  and  New  Bed- 
ford, and  the  only  other  American  whaling  ports  were  Hudson  and  Sag  Harbor,  N.Y., 
and  New  London,  Conn.,  each  of  which  fitted  out  an  average  of  one  whaler  annually. 

1  Average  for  1805-06  only. 

Ill 

COMPARISON  OF  ARRIVALS  FROM  CERTAIN  FOREIGN 

PORTS  AT  BOSTON,  NEW  YORK,  PHILADELPHIA, 

BALTIMORE,  AND  NEW  ORLEANS,  1857 » 


Vessels  from 

Boston 

New  York 

Philadelphia 

Baltimore 

New  Orleans 

British  East  Indies 

98 

37 

Manila,  Batavia,  etc. 

24 

20 

,  . 

China 

6 

41 

Chile 

IS 

2 

12 

Buenos  Airea 

15 

26 

3 

Brazil 

17 

ISI 

45 

74 

83 

Porto  Rico 

7 

192 

16 

so 

7 

Hayti  and  St.  Domingo 

161 

174 

IS 

Cuba 

289 

967 

163 

81 

3Ji 

Russia 

23 

8 

.  . 

Mediterranean 

III 

179 

48 

22 

66 

Turkey 

24 

7 

m 

British  West  Indies 
England 

29 
110 

261 
583 

54 

75 

90 
30 

25 
1136 

Canada  and 

Maritime  Provinces 

1913 

342 

77 

73 

Total 

2842 

2990 

493 

441 

1628 

1  Boston  Board  of  Trade,  Fourth  Annual  Report  (1858),  85, 


376 


APPENDIX:  STATISTICS 


IV 

FOREIGN  PLACES  WHENCE  VESSELS  ARRIVED  IN 
PRINCIPAL  CUSTOMS  DISTRICTS  OF  MASSA- 
CHUSETTS, YEAR  ENDING  JUNE  30,  1857* 


NKW- 
BURYPORT 

GLOUCES- 
TER 

SALEM 

BOSTON 

NEW 

BEDFORD 

No. 

Tons 

No. 

Tons 

No. 

Tout 

No. 

Tons 

No. 

Tons 

British  East  Indies 
Philippines 
Dutch  East  Indies 
China 

Africa 
Azores,  Cape  Verde  Islands, 
Canaries 
Gibraltar  &  Malta 
Spanish  Mediterra- 
nean ports 
French  Mediterra- 
nean ports 
Sardinia 
Tuscany 
Naples  &  Sicily 
Smyrna 
Black  Sea 

Portugal 
Spain,  Atlantic  porta 
France, 

Norway  &  Sweden 
Russia 
England  &  Scotland 
Belgium  &  Holland 

Canada 
Maritime  Provinces 
S.  Pierre  &  Miquelon 

Cuba 
Porto  Rico 
British  W.  Indies 
Other  W.  Indies 
Hayti  &  San  Domingo 

British  Honduras 
Mexico  &  Central  America 

New  Grenada  &  Venezuela 
Surinam  &  Cayenne 
Brazil 
Argentine  Republic 
Uruguay 
Chile 
Peru 

Sandwich  Islands 
Returned  from  Whaling 

TOTAL 

X 
X 

275 

289 

98 
19 
5 
6 

15 

15 
3 

17 

14 
5 

80,780 
14,429 
3.390 
3,368 

4.058 

3.835 
582 

4.879 

5.502 

2,466 

4 

941 

•• 

'• 

32 

7.843 

.. 

.. 

I 

341 

65 
24 
I 

2 
17 
5 

10 
22 
I4O 
22 

I 
1913 
6 

289 
7 
29 
12 

161 

6 

3 

II 
17 
15 

IS 
3 
I 
3 

22,285 
8,026 
527 

771 
14.657 
1.858 

5.744 
10,452 
143,299 
10,380 

156 
235.998 
727 
70,526 
1,101 

5.929 
2,249 
27,028 

I,  III 
1,124 

596 

2,113 
3.695 
4.823 

7.927 
2,087 

1,089 
845 

i 
42 

X 

3 
132 

104 
5.957 

SI 

2,391 
40.565 

I 

300 

I 

492 

3 

733 

•• 

4 

2,198 

2 

707 

29 

2.340 

183 

15.88s 

8 
290 

915 

24.978 

8 

1,120 

i 

194 

X 
3 

171 
708 

••' 

22 

5.206 

ii 
14 

4 

X 

2.095 
2.430 
1.  194 
222 

3 

617 

38 

3.760 

211 

23,975 

375 

43.488 

3012 

714.821 

183 

SO.OO9 

1  From  Commerce  and  Navigation  Reports  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  1837. 
Vessels  are  entered  only  once  for  a  voyage  in  this  table,  generally  from  the  last  port  of 
call,  or  from  the  port  where  the  principal  cargo  was  taken. 

377 


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BIBLIOGRAPHY  OF  THE  MARITIME 
HISTORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

1783-1860 

ABBREVIATIONS:  E.I.  =  Essex  Institute,  Salem;  E.I.H.C.  =  Essex 
Institute  Historical  Collections.  H.C.L.  =  Harvard  College  Library. 
M.H.S.  =  Massachusetts  Historical  Society;  Proc.  M.H.S.  =  Pro- 
ceedings of  the  same.  p.p.  =  privately  printed.  Works  cited  are 
printed  at  Boston  unless  otherwise  stated. 

I  wish  to  acknowledge  my  indebtedness  for  information,  pictures, 
and  for  various  facilities  and  courtesies,  to  Captain  Arthur  H.  Clark, 
of  Newburyport;  Mr.  Fred  W.  Tibbets,  of  Gloucester;  Miss  Elsie 
Heard,  of  Ipswich;  Mrs.  A.  P.  Loring,  Jr.,  Miss  Katherine  Loring, 
and  Mr.  J.  A.  Marsters,  of  Beverly;  Mrs.  George  Wheatland  and 
Messrs.  Henry  W.  Belknap,  Lawrence  W.  Jenkins,  George  R.  Put- 
nam, John  Robinson,  and  William  J.  Sullivan,  of  Salem;  Messrs. 
F.  B.  C.  Bradlee,  Joseph  W.  Coates,  and  Benjamin  L.  Lindsey,  of 
Marblehead;  Messrs.  Charles  K.  Bolton,  James  H.  Bowditch,  Fred- 
eric Cunningham,  Henry  R.  Dalton,  George  F.  Dow,  Frederick  C. 
Fletcher,  Allan  Forbes,  Thomas  G.  Frothingham,  Roland  Gray, 
Dr.  O.  T.  Howe,  William  C.  Hunneman,  Thomas  P.  Martin,  Dr. 
Frederick  Merk,  J.  Grafton  Minot,  Miss  Grace  Nute,  Charles  F. 
Read,  Andr6  C.  Reggio,  Robert  B.  Smith,  F.  W.  Sprague,  Rev.  John 
W.  Suter,  Charles  H.  Taylor,  Jr.,  William  Ropes  Trask,  Julius  H. 
Tuttle,  Perry  Walton,  and  Frederick  S.  Whitwell,  of  Boston  and 
Cambridge;  Mr.  Charles  Torrey,  of  Brookline;  Mr.  Edward  Gray, 
of  Milton;  Mrs.  F.  W.  Sargent,  of  Wellesley;  Mrs.  Ellen  Trask,  of 
Lincoln;  Mr.  George  Shaw,  of  Concord;  Mr.  Edmund  P.  Collier,  of 
Cohasset;  Messrs.  E.  W.  Bradford  and  Arthur  Lord,  of  Plymouth; 
Dr.  William  H.  Chapman  and  Mrs.  A.  S.  Cobb,  of  Brewster;  Mr. 
Everett  I.  Nye,  of  Wellfleet;  Messrs.  George  H.  Tripp  and  Frank 
Wood,  of  New  Bedford;  Miss  Susan  E.  Brock,  of  Nantucket;  Cap- 
tain John  W.  Pease,  of  Edgartown;  Mr.  Charles  Lyon  Chandler,  of 
Philadelphia;  Mr.  H.  K.  Devereux,  of  Cleveland;  Mr.  Irving  Grin- 
nell,  of  New  Hamburg,  New  York;  and  Mr.  Samuel  Hale  Pearson, 
of  Buenos  Aires. 

379 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

I.  GENERAL 

1.  MANUSCRIPT  SOURCES.  The  Custom  House  Records  of  the  old 
customs  districts  of  Massachusetts  are  invaluable  for  foreign  and 
coastwise  commerce,  shipping,  and  the  fisheries.  For  an  account  of 
the  present  state  and  location  of  these  records  see  Proc.  M.H.S.  for 
1921.  These  Customs  Records  show  what  trade  was  carried  on;  but 
the  mercantile  and  shipping  MSS.  of  individuals  and  firms,  includ- 
ing letter-books,  ledgers,  account  books,  log  books  and  sea  journals, 
show  better  how  it  was  carried  on.  The  most  important  public  con- 
lections  of  this  class  are  in  the  Beverly  Hist.  Society,  the  E.I.,  the 
H.C.L.,  the  M.H.S.  and  the  New  Bedford  Public  Library.  The  bulk 
of  such  material  is  still  in  private  hands,  and  much  of  it  is  destroyed 
every  year  by  otherwise  intelligent  people.   Although  of  slight  in- 
trinsic value,  these  MSS.  are  of  immense  historic  worth;  the  H.C.L. 
and  the  M.H.S.  are  always  glad  to  store  such  papers  without  charge, 
or  to  receive  them  as  gifts.   Court  Records,  especially  those  of  the 
Federal  courts  in  Massachusetts,  kept  in  the  Boston  Post  Office 
building,  are  an  untouched  mine  of  information  on  maritime  mat- 
ters; S Prague's  Reports  and  the  Digest  of  Federal  Cases  indicate  the 
important  cases. 

2.  NEWSPAPERS.  Those  of  the  smaller  seaports,  excepting  New 
Bedford,  afford  much  less  information  than  do  the  Customs  Records 
of  the  general  course  of  commerce;  but  are  valuable  for  their  adver- 
tisements and  stories  of  shipwrecks,  sea-serpents,  etc.  But  the  Bos- 
ton papers  are  our  sole  source  for  Boston  entrances  and  clearances,  as 
the  Boston  Customs  Records  for  this  period  have  been  destroyed. 
For  the  Federalist  period  the  Columbian  Centinel,  and  the  Boston 
Price  Current,  beginning  1795  (for  the  later  titles,  and  check-list,  see 
Proceedings  Am.  Antiq.  Soc.,  xxv,  278)  are  best;  for  the  period  1815- 
1842,  P.  P.  F.  Degrand's  Boston  Weekly  Report  (1819-27,  best  file  in 
Boston  Athenaeum),  Boston  Commercial  Gazette  and  Boston  Daily 
Advertiser;  for  the  period  1843-60,  the  Boston  Shipping  List  and 
Price  Current  (very  full  information  on  commerce,  and  useful  yearly 
summaries,  best  file  at  Boston  Marine  Museum,  Old  State  House) ; 
Boston  Atlas  and  Boston  Journal.  Hunt's  Merchants'  Magazine  (N.Y., 
1839-60)  is  a  mine  of  commercial  information. 

3.  STATISTICS.  The  Commerce  and  Navigation  Reports,  annually 
issued  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  are  to  be  found  in  the 
American  State  Papers,  Commerce  and  Navigation  down  to  1821; 
thenceforth  issued  separately,  and  also*  in  the  regular  series  of  Con- 

380 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

gressional  Documents.  For  the  period  1783-1833,  T.  Pitkin,  Sta- 
tistical View  (New  Haven,  ed.  of  1835);  Adam  Seybert,  Statistical 
Annals  (Phila.  1818);  G.  Watterston  and  N.  B.  Van  Zandt,  Tabular 
Statistical  Views  (Washington,  1828),  and  Continuation  of  same 
(1833)  will  be  found  more  convenient.  Many  statistics  are  also 
given  in  Hunt's  Merck.  Mag.  and  in  Samuel  Hazard  (ed.),  Hazard's 
U.S.  Commercial  and  Statistical  Register  (Phila.,  1839-42).  The  State 
Censuses  of  1837  (John  P.  Bigelow,  Statistical  Tables  of  Certain 
Branches  of  Industry,  1838),  1845  (John  G.  Palfrey,  Ibid.  1846),  and 
1855  contain  statistics  on  shipbuilding,  fisheries  and  whaling  only; 
that  of  1865  gives  also  the  coastwise  fleet.  The  best  single  compila- 
tion of  Mass,  commercial  statistics  will  be  found  in  British  Parlia- 
mentary Documents,  Accounts  and  Papers,  XLIX,  Part  I,  1846  (part 
XV  of  John  Macgregor's  Commercial  Tariffs,  etc.). 

4.  GENERAL  SECONDARY  WORKS.   No  history  of  Massachusetts 
pays  the  slightest  attention  to  the  maritime  aspect  after  the  colo- 
nial period;  but  Edward  Channing,  History  of  the  U.S.,  vols.  in  and 
IV,  contains  much  valuable  data  on  American  commerce  to  1815. 
Emory  R.  Johnson  et  al.,  History  of  Domestic  and  Foreign  Commerce 
of  the  U.S.,  2  vols.  (Washington,  1915),  contains  a  useful  digest  of 
federal  legislation  affecting  shipping,  fishing,  etc.   Grace  Lee  Nute, 
American  Foreign  Commerce  1825-1850  (Radcliffe  doctoral  disserta- 
tion in  preparation),  aims  at  completeness  for  that  period.  John  R. 
Spears,  The  Story  of  the  American  Merchant  Marine  (N.Y.,  1910), 
is  the  most  honest  book  on  that  subject. 

5.  LOCAL  HISTORIES  of  the  maritime  towns  are  usually  inadequate 
or  misleading  on  all  maritime  activities  save  privateering;  excep- 
tions will  be  noted  below.    The  "Topographical  Descriptions"  of 
various  seaport  towns  in  the  Collections  of  the  M.H.S.  1st  ser.,  vols.  I- 
ix  (1792-1804),  2d  ser.,  vols.  in,  iv,  x  (1815-23),  3d  sen,  n  (1830), 
are  valuable  sources.    John  W.  Barber,  Historical  Collections  .  .  .  of 
every  Town  in  Massachusetts  (Worcester,  1839),  with  woodcuts.  There 
is  a  useful  class  of  publications  on  the  maritime  aspects  of  certain 
towns:  —  Leavitt  Sprague,  Barnstable  and  Yarmouth  Sea  Captains 
and  Ship  Owners  (p.p.,  1913).    Pamphlets  prepared  by  Walton  Adv. 
Co.  for  State  St.  Trust  Co.:  Old  Shipping  Days  in  Boston  (1918), 
Some  Merchants  and  Sea  Captains  of  Old  Boston  (1919),  Other  Mer- 
chants and  Sea  Captains  (1920).    J.  Henry  Sears,  Brewster  Ship 
Masters  (Yarmouthport,  1906).    Edmund  P.  Collier,  Deep  Sea  Cap- 
tains of  Cohasset,  (p.p.),  Benj.  L.  Lindsey,  Old  Marblehead  Sea 
Captains  and  the  Ships  in  which  They  Sailed  (Marblehead  Hist. 

381 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Soc.,  1915).  Ralph  D.  Paine,  Ships  and  Sailors  of  Old  Salem  (N.Y., 
1908;  Chicago,  1912),  a  topical  and  comprehensive  history  of  Salem 
commerce  and  privateering.  Old  Time  Ships  of  Salem  (E.  I.,  Salem, 
1917)  reproduces  several  famous  Salem  vessels  in  colors,  with  his- 
torical data. 

6.  BIOGRAPHIES,  MEMOIRS,  and  AUTOBIOGRAPHIES  OF  MER- 
CHANTS, SHIPMASTERS,  etc.  These  often  contain  letters  and  other 
source  material  of  great  value;  many,  however,  are  privately  printed 
and  scarce.  Several  good  memoirs  of  Boston,  Salem,  and  Newbury- 
port  merchants  will  be  found  in  the  E.I.H.C.,  Proc.  M.H.S.,  Free- 
man Hunt  (ed.),  Lives  of  American  Merchants  (N.Y.,  1856);  Hunt's 
Merc.  Mag.  (esp.  vol.  xi) ;  W.  H.  Bayley  &  O.  0.  Jones,  Hist,  of  the 
Marine  Society  of  Newburyport  (Nbpt.,  1906) ;  J.  J.  Currier,  History 
of  Newburyport  (Nbpt.,  1906)  n,  chap.  xxn.  Wm.  H.  Reed,  Reminis- 
cences ofElisha  Atkins  (p.p.,  1890).  N.  I.  Bowditch,  Memoir  of  Na- 
thaniel Bowditch  (3d  ed.,  Cambridge,  1884).  [Ann  Tracy],  Reminis- 
cences of  John  Bromfield  (Salem,  1852).  H.  C.  Lodge,  Life  and  Letters 
of  George  Cabot  (1877).  Roxana  Dabney ,  A  nnals  of  the  Dabney  Family 
at  Fayal  (3  vols.  p.p.,  1892).  Wm.  T.  Davis,  Plymouth  Memories  of 
an  Octogenarian  (Plymouth,  1906).  Anna  E.  Ticknor,  Memoir  of 
Samuel  Eliot  (p.p.,  1869).  Robert  Bennet  Forbes,  Personal  Remi- 
niscences (2d.  ed.,  1882,  with  additional  material;  extra-illustrated 
copy  in  H.C.L.).  Sarah  F.  Hughes,  Letters  and  Recollections  of  John 
Murray  Forbes  (2  vols,  1899).  There  is  also  a  p.p.  5  vol.  edition. 
Nathaniel  Goddard,  Boston  Merchant,  1767-1853  (p.p.,  1906).  Ed- 
ward Gray,  William  Gray  of  Salem,  Merchant  (1914).  T.  F.  Waters, 
Augustine  Heard  and  his  Friends  (Publications  of  the  Ipswich  His- 
torical Society,  xxi,  1916).  T.  W.  Higginson,  Life  and  Times  of 
Stephen  Higginson  (1907).  Osborn  Howes,  Autobiographical  Sketch, 
Edited  by  his  children  (p.p.,  1894).  The  Autobiography  of  Capt.  Zach- 
ary  G.  Lamson  1797-1814,  with  Introduction  and  Historical  Notes 
by  0.  T.  Howe  (1908).  Martha  Nichols  (ed.),  George  Nichols,  Salem 
Shipmaster  and  Merchant,  An  Autobiography  (Salem,  1913).  [Lucy 
W.  Peabody],  Henry  Wayland  Peabody,  Merchant  (West  Medford, 
1909).  T.  G.  Cary,  Memoir  of  Thomas  Handasyd  Perkins  (1856). 
Nathaniel  Silsbee,  "Biographical  Notes,"  E.I.H.C.,  xxxv  (1899). 
Brief  Sketch  of  Capt.  Josiah  Sturgis  (1844).  Julian  Sturgis,  From 
Books  and  Papers  of  Russell  Sturgis  (p.p.,  Oxford).  J.  D.  WTiidden, 
Ocean  Life  in  the  old  Sailing  Ship  Days  (1908).  Family  histories  and 
genealogies,  too  numerous  to  mention  here,  also  afforded  much  in- 
formation. See  also  under  §  5. 

382 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

II.  BY  SUBJECTS » 

'  7.  NORTHWEST  COAST  AND  CHINA  TRADE. 

(a)  MANUSCRIPTS  (chaps,  iv-vi  and  xvi-xvn).    Bryant  &  Stur- 
gis  MSS.t  Josiah  Marshall  MSS.,  J.  P.  Gushing  MS.  letter-book, 
Horatio  A.  Lamb,  Notes  on  Trade  with  the  Northwest  Coast,  1790- 
1810  (digest  of  records  of  J.  &  T.  Lamb),  in  the  H.  C.  L.;  Boit  MSS., 
Ship  Columbia  MSS.,  and  John  Hoskins,  Narrative  of  the  Columbia's 
Second  Voyage,  in  M.H.S.;  Solid  Men  of  Boston  in  the  Northwest, 
copy  in  M.H.S.  from  the  Bancroft    MSS.,  Berkeley,  California. 
Augustine  Heard  MSS.,  John  Suter  MSS.,  and  log  of  ship  Massa- 
chusetts, in  private  possession.    Journals  of  ships  Concord,  Margaret, 
Hamilton,  and  others  in  E.I.,  Salem.    Reports  of  LaforSt,  Barbe- 
Marbois,  and  De  Guigne  on  early  American  trade  with  China  in 
Archives  des  Affaires  Etrangeres,  Paris,  "  Memoires  et  Documents, 
Etats-Unis,"  vin,  207,  xrv,  164-69,  369-80;  "Asie,"  xix,  62,  141, 
219. 

(b)  PRINTED  SOURCES.  The  Journals  of  Samuel  Shaw,  with  a  life 
of  the  Author  by  Josiah  Quincy  (1847).  John  Boit,  Jr.,  Remarks  on 
the  Ship  Columbia's  [second]   Voyage,  Proc.  M.H.S.,  LIII  (1920). 
Archibald  Cambell,  A  Voyage  round  the  World  from  1805  to  1812 
(N.Y.,  1817).  Richard  J.  Cleveland,  Narrative  of  Voyages  and  Com- 
mercial Enterprises  (2  vols.,  1842,  and  I  vol.,  1850).  Amasa  Delano, 
Narrative  of  Voyages  and  Travels  (1817),  John  D'Wolf,  Voyage  to 
the  North  Pacific  and  Journey  through  Siberia  (Cambridge,  1861). 
Capt.  Eliah  Grimes,  Letters  from  N.W.  Coast  (1822),  in  Washington 
Hist.  Quart.,  xi,  174  (1920).   Haswell's  Journal  of  the  Columbia's 
first  Voyage,  in  appendix  to  H.  H.  Bancroft,  Pacific  States,  xxn. 
John  R.  Jewitt,  Narrative  of  Adventures  (N.Y.,  1816).    Bernard 
Magee,  "Observations  on  the  Islands  of  Juan  Fernandez,"  etc.  in 
Collections  of  M.H.S.,  1st  sen,  iv,  247.  William  Moulton,  A  Con- 
cise Extract  from  the  Sea  Journal . . .  written  on  board  the  Onico 
(Utica,  N.Y.,  1804).   The  Narrative  of  David  Woodard  and  four  Sea- 
men (London,  1804).    William  Sturgis,  The  Northwest  Fur  Trade 
(Old  South  Leaflets,  no.  219).  W.  F.  Taylor,  Voyage  Round  the  World 
in  the  U.S.  Frigate  Columbia  (New  Haven,  1843).    William  Tufts, 
"List  of  American  vessels  engaged  in  the  Trade  of  the  Northwest 
Coast,   1787-1809"   (incomplete),  in  James  G.  Swan,   Northwest 
Coast  (N.Y.,  1837),  423.   Charles  P.  Low,  Some  Recollections,  1847- 

1  The  general  sources  and  secondary  authorities  mentioned  above 
have  also  been  drawn  upon  for  these  subjects. 

383 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

(p.p.,  1906).  Katherine  Hillard,  My  Mother's  Journal  (1900). 
William  C.  Hunter,  The  Fan  Kwae  at  Canton  before  Treaty  Days 
(London,  1882),  and  Bits  of  Old  China  (London,  1885).  Robert  B. 
Forbes,  Remarks  on  China  and  the  China  Trade  (1844).  British 
Parliamentary  Papers,  1830,  VI,  pp.  35O-93.1  Charles  Gtitzlaff, 
Sketch  of  Chinese  History  (London,  1834).  John  Phipps,  Practical 
Treatise  on  China  and  the  Eastern  Trade  (Calcutta,  1835). 

(c)  SECONDARY.  For  the  Northwest  Coast  and  early  California 
trades:  —  H.  H.  Bancroft,  History  of  the  Pacific  States,  xiv  (Cali- 
fornia, n),  xxu,  and  xxni  (Northwest  Coast,  I,  II,  San  Francisco, 
1884).  For  the  China  trade:  —  Kenneth  S.  Latourette,  The  History 
of  Early  Relations  between  the  United  States  and  China,  1784-1844 
(Trans.  Conn.  Acad.  Arts  Sci.,  XX,  New  Haven,  1917).  For  seal- 
ing:—  A.  Howard  Clark,  "The  Antarctic  Fur-Seal  and  Sea- El- 
ephant Industry,"  in  G.  B.  Goode,  Fisheries  of  the  U.S.  (Wash- 
ington, 1887),  vii.  Edward  G.  Porter,  "The  Ship  Columbia  and  the 
Discovery  of  Oregon  "  with  illustrations  made  on  voyage,  N.E.  Mag., 
n.s.,  VI,  472  (1892);  reprinted  in  Old  South  Leaflets,  No.  131.  Louis 
Becke  and  Walter  Jeffery,  The  Tapu  of  Banderah  (Phila.,  1901). 
F.  W.  Howay,  "The  Voyage  of  the  Hope,  1790-92,"  Washington 
Hist.  Quart.,  xi  (1920).  C.  G.  Loring,  "  Memoir  of  William  Sturgis," 
Proc.  M.H.S.,  vii.  See  also  §§5  and  6,  above. 

8.  SALEM  COMMERCE  (chaps,  vii,  vm,  xiv,  and  part  iv  and  ix). 
The  Diary  of  William  Bentley,  D.D.,  1784-18 IQ  (4  vols.,  E.I.,  Salem, 
1905-14).  Numerous  logs,  and  sea  journals  and  other  MSS.  in  E.I.; 
Thorndike  MSS.,  Beverly  Hist.  Soc.;  Cleveland  MSS.  and  miscella- 
neous MSS.  in  Peabody  Museum,  Salem;  Heard  MSS.,  Silsbee  MSS., 
and  Howe  MSS.,  in  private  hands.  C.  S.  Osgood  &  H.  M.  Batchelder, 
Historical  Sketch  of  Salem  (Salem,  1879)  and  R.  D.  Paine,  Ships  and 
Sailors,  are  the  best  secondary  accounts;  the  latter  is  also  a  guide  to 
the  printed  material.  Biographies  of  George  Nichols,  Edward  Gray, 
Z.  G.  Lamson,  Nathaniel  Silsbee  (see  §  6).  Robert  E.  Peabody, 
Merchant  Venturers  of  Old  Salem  [the  Derbys]  (Boston,  1912).  Nu- 
merous articles  and  much  source  material  in  the  E.I.H.C.  John  C. 
Brent,  "Leaves  from  an  African  Journal,"  in  Knickerbocker  Mag., 
1848-50;  Montgomery  Parker,  "Sketches  in  S.  Africa,"  Ibid., 
1850-53.  Horatio  Bridge,  U.S.N.,  Journal  of  an  African  Cruiser  . . . 

1  The  title  page  of  this  volume  is  Reports  from  Committees,  3,  East 
India  Company' s Affairs  (Lord's Report).  Sessions  February  —  23  July 
1830.  Vol.  VI.  It  contains  testimony  by  Joshua  Bates  and  others  on 
the  American  trade  with  China. 

384 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

edited  by  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  (N.Y.,  1845).  Narrative  of  the  Cap- 
ture of  the  brig  Mexican  by  Pirates  (1832,  reprinted  in  E.I.H.C., 
xxxni).  [J.  Oliver  and  W.  S.  Dix],  The  Wreck  of  the  Glide,  with 
Recollections  of  the  Fijiis,  (N.Y.,  1846).  J.  H.  Reynolds,  Voyage  of 
the  U.S.  Frigate  Potomac  (N.Y.,  1835). 

9.  SHIPS  AND  SHIPBUILDING  (chaps,  vm  and  part  of  xvi).  Henry 
Hall,  Report  on  the  Shipbuilding  Industry  (Washington,  1884)  from 
the  loth  Census,  is  a  most  unsatisfactory  work,  but  reproduces  the 
lines  of  some  famous  vessels.  The  studies  of  local  shipbuilding  sel- 
dom give  more  than  the  tonnage  measurement,  and  not  one  dis- 
cusses the  changes  in  design.   A.  Vernon  Briggs,  History  of  Ship- 
building on  North  River,  Plymouth  County,  Mass. . . .  1640-1872 
(1887),  is  most  comprehensive  and  valuable.  W.  H.  Summer,  His- 
tory of  East  Boston,  697,  gives  a  list  of  vessels  there  built  through 
1858.  Capt.  John  Bradford,  "Reminiscences  of  Duxbury  Shipbuild- 
ing," in  L.  Bradford,  Hist,  of  Duxbury.  Charles  Brooks,  History  of 
Medford  (1855),  pp.  366-79,  gives  a  list  of  vessels  there  built  be- 
tween 1803  and  1854;  see  also  Medford  Historical  Register,  i,  65,  XV, 
77.   John  J.  Currier,  Historical  Sketch  of  Ship  Building  on  the  Merri- 
mac  River  (Nbpt.,  1877).   Wm.  Leavitt,  "  Materials  for  the  History 
of  Shipbuilding  in  Salem,"  in  E.I.H.C.,  VI,  VII  (1863-65),  with  full 
dimensions.  A.  F.  Hitchings  &  Stephen  W.  Phillips,  Ship  Registers 
of  the  District  of  Salem  and  Beverly,  1789-1900  (Salem,  1906,  re- 
printed from  E.I.H.C.,  XXXIX-XLII)  is  a  most  useful  work  of  refer- 
ence; there  is  great  need  of  a  similar  one  for  Boston.  H.  H.  Edes, 
Memorial  of  Josiah  Barker  (1891).   R.  B.  Forbes,  Notes  on  Ships  of 
the  Past  (1885),  and  A  New  Rig  for  Ships  (1849).  R.  H.  Dana,  The 
Seaman's  Friend;  containing  a  Treatise  on  Practical  Seamanship, 
with  Plates;  a  Dictionary  of  Sea  Terms,  Customs  and  Usages  of  the 
.  Merchant  Service;  Laws  relating  to  the  Practical  Duties  of  Master  and 

Mariner  (1841),  is  the  most  useful  work  of  this  sort. 

10.  SHIP  PORTRAITS  AND  MODELS.  The  best  public  collections  are 
in  the  Peabody  Museum,  Salem;  the  Boston  Marine  Museum,  Old 
State  House,  Boston;  the  Old  Dartmouth  Historical  Society,  New 
Bedford;  the  Beverly  Historical  Society;  the  Marblehead  Historical 
Society,  and  the  Historical  Society  of  Old  Newbury,  Newburyport. 
Private  collections  to  which  I  have  had  access,  through  the  kindness 
of  the  owners,  are  those  of  Charles  H.  Taylor,  Jr.,  Allan  Forbes,  and 
Dr.  O.  T.  Howe,  Boston;  Frederick  C.  Fletcher,  Herbert  Foster  Otis, 
and  Charles  Torrey,  Brookline;  F.  B.  C.  Bradlee,  Marblehead;  and 
Captain  Arthur  H.  Clark,  Newburyport.   The  East  India  House, 

385 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

New  York,  has  a  collection  of  paintings  of  Massachusetts  clipper  and 
packet-ships.  Little  is  known  of  our  ship  painters.  For  Robert 
Salmon,  see  Proceedings  Bostonian  Society  for  Jan.  1895,  p.  37.  There 
is  a  catalogue  of  his  works  in  the  Boston  Public  Library.  Of  Bresay- 
ant's  Antoine  Roux  et  ses  fils  (Marseilles,  circ.  1882),  I  have  been 
unable  to  find  a  copy. 

11.  ARCHITECTURE  AND  SOCIAL  LIFE  OF  THE  MERCHANTS  (chaps. 
IX  and  xv).  Bentley's  Diary  (see  §  8);  Frank  Cousins,  The  Colonial 
Architecture  of  Salem  (1919) ;  F.  Cousins  and  P.  M.  Riley,  The  Wood- 
Carver  of  Salem,  Samuel  Mclniire  and  his  Work  (1916).  Mrs.  E.  Vale 
Smith,  History  of  Newburyport  (Nbpt.,  1854);  Sarah  A.  Emery, 
Reminiscences  of  a  Nonagenarian  (Nbpt.,  1879).   Albert  Hale,  Old 
Newburyport  Houses  (1912).   Charles  A.  Cummings,  "Architecture 
in  Boston,"  in  Justin  Winsor,  Memorial  History  of  Boston,  rv,  chap. 
Viii.    Bulletin  of  the  Society  for  the  Preservation  of  New  England 
Antiquities,  and  Old  Time  New  England,  the  new  monthly  magazine 
of  the  same  Society.   Ellen  S.  Bulfinch,  Life  and  Letters  of  Charles 
Bulfinch  (1896);  Ashton  R.  Willard,  "Charles  Bulfinch  the  Archi- 
tect," in  N.E.  Mag.,  n.s.,  m,  273  (1890).   Henry  F.  Bond,  "Old 
Summer  Street,  Boston,"  Ibid.,  n.s.,  xix,  333  (1898).   Biographies 
of  merchants  (see  §  6),  esp.  of  Samuel  Eliot  and  George  Nichols. 
Mary  H.  Northend,  Memories  of  Old  Salem  (Chicago,  1917).  Act  of 
Incorporation  and  By-laws  of  the  East  India  Marine  Society  (Salem, 
1899).   Catalog  of  the  "  Cleopatra's  Barge"  Exhibition  at  the  Peabody 
Museum  (with  bibliography,  Salem,  1916). 

12.  THE  FISHERIES  (chaps,  x  and  xix).  There  is  no  wholly  satis- 
factory account  of  the  Massachusetts  fisheries,  based  on  original 
research.   The  best  are  Raymond  McFarland,  History  of  the  New 
England  Fisheries  (Univ.  of  Penn.,  1911) ;  Lorenzo  Sabine,  Report  on 
the  Principal  Fishermen  of  the  American  Seas  (Washington,  1853); 
G.  Brown  Goode,  Fisheries . . .  of  the  U.S.  (Washington,  1887),  vi 
(Section  v,  "History  and  Methods  of  the  Fisheries,"  vol.  I.).  Of  the 
local  histories,  the  following  are  the  most  useful:  Samuel  Roads, 
Jr.,  History  and  Traditions  of  Marblehead  (1880),  (cf.  Whidden's 
Ocean  Life,  cited  above,  §  6) ;  John  J.  Babson,  History  of  Gloucester 
(Gloucester,  1860);  J.  R.  Pringle,  History  of  Gloucester  (Ibid.,  1892); 
[Fred  W.  Tibbets,  ed.],  Memorial  of  the  2$oth  anniversary  of  Glou- 
cester (Ibid.,  1901);  James  Thatcher,  History  of  Plymouth  (2d  ed., 
1835);  E.  V.  Bigelow,  History  of  Cohasset  (1898),  Waldo  Thompson, 
Swampscott  (Lynn,  1885);  Shebnah  Rich,  Truro —  Cape  Cod  (Bos- 
ton, 1883);  S.  L.  Deyo  (ed.),  History  of  Barnstable  County  (N.Y., 

386 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

1890);  Everett  I.  Nye,  History  of  Wettfleet  (Hyannis,  1920).  Con- 
siderable information  and  otherwise  on  the  Gloucester  fisheries, 
from  various  octogenarians'  reminiscences,  can  be  found  in  George 
H.  Procter  (compiler),  The  Fishermen's  Memorial  and  Record  Book 
(Glouc.,  1873),  The  Fisheries  of  Gloucester,  1623-1876  (Ibid.,  1876), 
The  Fishermen's  Own  Book  (Ibid.,  1882);  and  Sylvanus  Smith,  Fish- 
eries of  Cape  Ann  (Ibid.,  1915).  The  best  description  of  the  life  of 
the  fishermen  is  J.  Reynolds,  Peter  Gott  the  Cape  Ann  Fisherman 
(1856).  The  story  of  Beverly  fisheries  is  largely  in  MSS.  in  the  Bev- 
•erly  Hist.  Society.  For  Cape  Cod  in  the  Federalist  period,  the 
"Topographical  Descriptions"  in  the  early  volumes  of  Collections 
of  the  M.H.S.,  are  most  valuable,  as  are  vol.  in  of  Timothy  Dwight, 
Travels  in  New  England  and  New  York  (New  Haven,  1822),  vol.  in, 
and  E.  A.  Kendall,  Travels  Through  the  Northern  Parts  of  the  United 
States  in  1807-08  (N.Y.,  1809),  vol.  n.  Thoreau's  Cape  Cod  is  the 
classic  description  for  about  1850.  Albert  P.  Brigham,  Cape  Cod  and 
the  Old  Colony  (N.Y.,  1920)  is  an  admirable  study  in  regional  geog- 
raphy. On  separate  branches:  George  B.  Goode  et  al.,  Materials  for 
a  History  of  the  Mackerel  Fishery  (from  Annual  Report  of  U.S.  Com- 
missioner of  Fish  and  Fisheries  for  1881),  Washington,  1883;  Sheb- 
nah  Rich,  The  Mackerel  Fishery  of  North  America  (1879).  Ernest 
Ingersoll,  The  Oyster  Industry  (Washington,  1881,  a  reprint  from 
Goode's  Fisheries).  Joseph  W.  Collins,  "Evolution  of  the  American 
Fishing  Schooner,"  N.E.  Mag.,  n.s.,  xvm,  336  (1898)  is  a  most  val- 
uable article.  The  models  illustrated  therein  are  now  mostly  in  the 
E.I.  and  the  Annisquam  Yacht  Club.  Pictures  of  fishing  vessels 
before  1860  are  exceedingly  rare. 

13.  FEDERALISM  AND  NEUTRAL  TRADE  (chap.  xn).  Beverly  Ship- 
ping MSS.,  Bev.  Hist.  Soc.;  Boit  MSS.  and  William  Gray  Letter-book 
in  private  hands.  G.  R.  Putnam,  Lighthouses  and  Lightships  of  the 
U.S.  (1917).  Capt.  Lawrence  Furlong,  American  Coast  Pilot  (Nbpt., 
1809).  N.  Spooner,  Gleanings  from  Records  of  Boston  Marine  Society 
(Boston,  1875).  Biographies  of  Bromfield,  Forbes,  Goddard,  Gray, 
Lamson,  Higginson,  and  Perkins  cited  in  §  6,  and  S.  E.  Morison, 
H.  G.  Otis  (1913).  Elijah  Cobb,  Autobiographical  Sketch  (written 
about  1845,  printed  in  Yarmouth  Register,  photostat  copy  in  M.H.S.). 
R.  E.  Peabody,  Merchant  Venturers  (§  8);  R.  J.  Cleveland,  Voyages 
(§7).  For  South  American  Trade:  —  Charles  Lyon  Chandler,  ar- 
ticles in  Am.  Hist.  Rev.,  xxm,  816-26  (1918),  Hisp.  Am.  Hist.  Rev., 
II,  26-54  (1919);  Hi,  159-66  (1920);  and  Inter-American  Acquaint- 
ances (2d  ed.,  Sewanee,  Tenn.,  1917). 

387 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

14.  EMBARGO  AND  WAR  OF  1812  (chap.  xm).  Biographies  cited 
above.  C.  F.  Adams  (ed.),  Memoirs  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  n  (Phila.,  1874); 
Worthington  C.  Ford  (ed.),  Writings  of  J,  Q.  Adams,  in,  iv  (N.Y., 
1914).   Histories  of  maritime  towns,  especially  L.  B.  Ellis,  History 
of  New  Bedford  (Syracuse,-  N.Y.,  1892);  Freeman's  Cape  Cod  and 
Swift's  Cape  Cod.  Wm.  Leavitt,  "Private  Armed  Vessels  of  Salem," 
in  E.I.H.C.  for  1860.    B.  B.  Crowninshield,  "The  Private  Armed 
Ship  America,"  E.I.H.C.,  xxxvii.  Log  of  Brutus  in  Boston  Marine 
Society;  papers  of  the  Grand  Turk  in  Beverly  Hist.  Society.  Bent- 
ley's  Diary.    David  Porter,  Journal  of  Cruise  in  U.S.  Frigate  Essex 
(N.Y.,  1822).   Autobiography  of  Elder  Joseph  Bates  (Battle  Creek, 
1868);  Report  of  Committee  of  House  of  Representatives  on  Im- 
pressments (1813);  account  of  Salem  impressments  in  E.I.H.C., 
XLIX,  321. 

15.  HAWAIIAN,  SOUTH  SEA,  AND  CALIFORNIA  HIDE  TRADE  (chap. 
XVi).    Bryant  &  Sturgis,  Josiah  Marshall,  and  James  Hunnewell 
MSS.,  H.C.L.;  S.  E.  Morison,  "Boston  Traders  in  Hawaii,  1789- 
1823,"  Proc.  M.H.S.,  Liv,  9  (October,  1920),  and  authorities  therein 
cited.  For  California,  see  Charles  E.  Chapman,  "The  Literature  of 
California  History,"  South-western  Hist.  Quar.,  xxn,  318-52  (1919), 
and  add  Lieut.  Joseph  W.  Revere,  U.S.N.,  A  Tour  of  Duty  in  Cali- 
fornia (N.Y.,  1849).   The  classic  narrative  of  this  trade  is  R.  H. 
Dana,  Two  Years  before  the  Mast  (N.Y.,  1840,  and  numerous  later 
editions).  R.  B.  Forbes,  Notes  on  Navigation  (1884). 

16.  MARITIME  AND  COMMERCIAL  BOSTON  TO  1850  (chap,  xv,  and 
parts  of  others)  has  received  much  less  adequate  treatment  than 
Salem.  Hamilton  A.  Hill,  Trade  and  Commerce  of  Boston  (Reprinted 
from  Professional  and  Industrial  History  of  Suffolk  Co.,  n,  1894)  is  a 
mere  sketch,  but  useful  as  far  as  it  goes.  Bostonian  Society  Publica- 
tions, passim.  Bowen's  Picture  of  Boston  (3d  ed.,  1838).  State  St. 
Trust  Co.  pamphlets  (see  §  5).      Biographies  (§6).   N.  Spooner, 
Gleanings  (§  13).  James  H.  Lanman,  "The  Commerce  of  Boston," 
in  Hunt's  Merc.  Mag.-,  x,  421  (1844)  and  Charles  Hudson  "Mass, 
and  her  Resources,"  in  Ibid.,  IX,  426.  "Shipping  of  the  Port  of  Bos- 
ton," in  Ibid.,  xiv,  83  (1845).  E.  J.  Howard,  "Commercial  Review 
of  Fifty  Years,"  in  Boston  Board  of  Trade,  27th  and  2Qth  Annual 
Reports  (1880,  1882).  The  Life  of  Father  Taylor,  the  Sailor  Preacher 
(Boston,  1904),  includes  an  earlier  biography  by  Haven  and  Rus- 
sell, and  several  short  sketches.   Fitz  Henry  Smith,  Jr.,  Storms  and 
Shipwrecks  in  Boston  Bay,  and  the  Record  of  the  Life  Savers  of 
Hull  (p.p.,  1918,  reprinted  from  Bostonian  Society  Publications}. 

388 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

R.  B.  Forbes,  A  Discursive  Sketch  on  Yachting  (1888),  and  Voyage  of 
the  Jamestown  (1847). 

17.  STEAM  NAVIGATION  AND  SAILING  PACKET  LINES  (chap.  xv). 
F.  B.  C.  Bradlee,  Steam  Navigation  in  New  England  (Salem,  1920, 
reprinted  from  E.I.H.C.}  gives  a  detailed  account  of  the  lines  north 
of  Boston  with  illustrations.  The  same  author,  in  a  series  of  articles 
in  the  International  Marine  Engineering  between  1910  and  1920, 
describes  the  lines  south  of  Boston.   His  The  Dreadnought  of  New- 
buryport  (Salem,  1920,  reprinted  with  additions  from  E.I.H.C.), 
contains  material  on  the  sailing  packets.  Samuel  Samuels,  From  the 
Forecastle  to  the  Cabin  (N.Y.,  1887).   Moses  W.  Mann,  "Medford 
Steamboat  Days,"   Medford  Historical  Register,  xvn,  92   (1914). 
Pliny  Miles,  Advantages  of  Ocean  Steam  Navigation  (1857)  contains 
much  data  on  Southern  coasting  trade.  R.  B.  Forbes,  The  Auxiliary 
Screw  Ship  "Massachusetts"  (1853),  and  Remarks  on  Ocean  Steam 
Navigation  (1855). 

1 8.  EAST  INDIA  AND  ICE  TRADE.    Frederic  Tudor  MSS.t  in  private 
hands,  and  Tudor's  own  story,  written  in  1849,  in  Proc,  M.H.S.,  ill, 
53-60.  Boston  Board  of  Trade,  Third  Annual  Report  (1857). 

19.  WHALING.  There  is  need  of  a  comprehensive  history  of  this 
industry,  paying  due  attention  to  the  labor  and  business  aspects, 
and  using  the  almost  untouched  mines  of  information  in  the  New 
Bedford  Whalemen's  Shipping  List  (1843-1916),  the  New  Bedford 
customs  records,  and  the  log  books  and  business  records  at  the  New 
Bedford  Public  Library  and  elsewhere.  The  standard  histories  are 
Obed  Macy,  History  of  Nantucket  (1835);  Alexander  Starbuck,  His- 
tory of  the  American  Whale  Fishery  (with  complete  list  of  whaling 
voyages,  Waltham,  1878) ;  and  Walter  S.  Tower,  History  of  the  Ameri- 
can Whale  Fishery  (Pub.  of  the  U.  of  Penn.  No.  20,  1907),  with  bib- 
liography and  statistics.  Another  whaling  bibliography  which  lists 
many  periodical  articles  and  titles  not  found  in  Tower,  is  [G.  H. 
Tripp],  A  Collection  of  Books,  Pamphlets,  Log  Books,  Pictures,  etc. 
Illustrating  Whales  and  the  Whale  Fishery  contained  in  the  Free 
Public  Library,  New  Bedford,  Mass.  (2d  ed.,  April,  1920).    The 
chapter  by  James  T.  Brown  in  G.  B.  Goode,  Fisheries  of  the  U.S. 
(Washington,  1887),  vii,  218-93,  gives  the  most  detailed  account  of 
methods  and  appliances.    Hussey  &  Robinson,  Catalogue  of  Nan- 
tucket  Whalers . . .  from  1815  to  1870  (Nantucket,  1876)  is  a  useful 
check-list.  John  R.  Spears,  The  Story  of  the  New  England  Whalers 
(N.Y.,  1908),  with  a  chapter  on  the  slavers;  and  A.  Hyatt  Verrill, 
The  Real  Story  of  the  Whaler  (N.Y.,  1916),  are  the  best  popular  de- 

389 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

scriptions  and  histories.  Herman  Melville's  classic,  Moby-Dick,  or 
the  White  Whale  (ist  ed.,  1851),  gives  the  writer's  experiences  in  the 
form  of  a  novel.  Other  whaling  novels  by  whalemen  are  Joseph  C. 
Hart,  Miriam  Coffin  (2  vols,  N.Y.,  1835,  and  later  editions),  and 
William  Hussey  Macy,  There  She  Blows!  (1877)  and  C.  H.  Robbins 
The  Gam  (New  Bedford,  1899),  a  group  of  short  stories.  Among  the 
dozens  of  whaling  voyage  narratives:  J.  Ross  Browne,  Etchings  of 
a  Whaling  Cruise  (N.Y.,  1846),  gives  the  viewpoint  of  a  green  hand; 
Charles  Nordhoff,  Whaling  and  Fishing  (Cincinnati,  1856)  that  of 
an  able  seaman  under  a  decent  skipper.  J.  N.  Reynolds's  Report  on 
Islands  discovered  by  Whalers  in  the  Pacific  (1835)  is  in  23  Cong., 
2d  sess.,  Ho.  Exec.  Doc.  in,  No.  105.  Charles  Wilkes,  U.S.N.,  in  his 
Narrative  of  the  U.S.  Exploring  Expedition,  1838-42  (London,  1845), 
V.,  Chap,  xn,  gives  a  list  of  the  whaling  grounds  and  describes 
certain  practices,  which  are  also  exposed  by  F.  M.  Ringgold  (U.S. 
consul  at  Puita,  P.I.)  in  an  official  report  summarized  in  Hunt's 
Merch.  Mag.,  XLI,  391  (1859);  and  denounced  by  the  Rev.  Francis 
Wayland  in  The  Claims  of  the  Whalemen  on  Christian  Benevolence 
(New  Bedford,  1843).  The  Old  Dartmouth  Historical  Sketches  (quar- 
terly of  the  Old  Dartmouth  Historical  Society),  especially  nos.  14, 
38,  44,  and  45,  are  full  of  valuable  material. 

20.  THE  CLIPPER-SHIP  ERA  (chaps,  xxi-xxm).  Captain  Arthur 
H.  Clark's  incomparable  Clipper  Ship  Era  (N.Y.,  1911),  and  Dr. 
Octavius  T.  Howe's  MS.  history  of  the  clipper  ships  and  MS.  history 
of  the  '49  movement,  are  the  principal  authorities  on  which  I  have 
relied.  The  dimensions  of  clipper  ships  given  in  the  footnotes  are 
taken  for  the  most  part  from  the  Boston  ship  registry  at  the  Boston 
custom  house.  Henry  Blaney,  Journal  of  Voyage  to  China  and  Re- 
turn, 1851-53  (p.p.,  1913).  Lieut.  M.  F.  Maury,  Explanations  and 
Sailing  Directions  (6th  ed.,  Phila.,  1854).  Percy  Chase  MSS.,  H.C.L., 
a  compilation  of  clipper  and  other  ships'  records.  Description  of  the 
Largest  Ship  in  the  World,  the  New  Clipper  Great  Republic  (1853). 
R.  B.  Forbes,  To  Merchants,  Underwriters  and  others  Interested  (1853), 
and  An  Appeal  to  Merchants  and  Ship  Owners  on  the  subject  of  Seamen 
(1854).  For  the  commerce  of  the  period  1850-60  the  Boston  Board 
of  Trade  Reports,  beginning  1854,  are  most  important;  those  of  1880 
and  1882  give  additional  matter. 


INDEX 


Names  of  vessels  are  in  italics 


Adams,  John,  135,  165,  174-75- 
Adams,  John  Quincy,  194,  197, 278. 
Africa,  trade  with,  33,  220-22;  see 

Slave  Trade,  South  Africa,  Zan- 
zibar. 

Akbar,  329. 

Alaska,  see  Northwest  Coast. 
Albatross,  53,  58. 
Alert  (i),  70;  (2),  77n.,  256. 
Algiers,  trade  with,  194. 
Allen,  Capt.  Joseph,  317. 
Alsop,  Richard,  26gn. 
America,  93,  100,  201. 
American  Hero,  203. 
American  Revolution,  23,  27-30. 
Ames  plow  works,  297,  333. 
Amory,  Thomas,  21. 
Amory,  Thomas  Jr.  &  Co.,  55,  57n., 

205. 
Amsterdam,   trade   with,    177-79, 

297. 

Andrew  Jackson,  233^,  341. 
Anjer,  67,  259. 
Ann  Alexander,  180. 
Architecture,  chapter  ix,  153,  229, 

237-38. 

Argonaut,  338,  348. 
Ariadne,  205. 
Astrea  (i),  35,  48,  49,  83,  92,  154; 

(2),  94, 108,115. 
Atahualpa,  69,  72,  112. 
Atlantic,  48. 
Auction  tax,  275. 
Austin,  J.  L.  &  B.,  57n. 
Australia,  62;    clipper  ships,  362- 

64;  trade  with,  367-69. 
Avon,  248. 
Azores,  see  Western  Islands. 

Bacon,  Daniel  C.,  339,  349. 
Bailey,  Capt.  John,  171. 
Baltic  trade,  origin,   154;    Napo- 
leonic period,  139, 155, 179,  iSgn., 


I93-95J   later,  216,  289,  294-97, 

366;  statistics,  377. 
Baltimore,  clippers,  100,  201,  292, 

329;   shipping  statistics,  376. 
Bangor,  236. 

Baring  Brothers  &  Co.,  168-69,  274- 
Barnard,  Capt.  Moses,  94. 
Barnstable,   146,  203,  264n.,  301; 

statistics,  378. 
Basey,  Capt.  Jonathan,  178. 
Batavia,   trade  with,  48,   52,  91, 

182-83,  275,  377- 
Bates,  Joshua,  274. 
Becket,  262. 
Becket,  Retire,  80. 
Benjamin,  73. 
Bentley,   Rev.   William,   92,   122, 

179;  quoted,  24,  33,  89,  98,  in, 

123,  137,  142,  149,  153,  191. 

Bethel,  20. 

Betsey,  brig,  155;  brigantine,  sgn.; 
ship,  178. 

Beverly,  790.,  141;  commerce  and 
fishing  in  1785-1800,  32,  38,  141- 
42;  War  of  1812,  208,  210;  after 
1815,  294n.,  303-304;  forty- 
niners,  335;  shipping  statistics, 
378. 

Beverly  Farms,  141,  245. 

Black  Ball  Line,  232. 

Black  Prince,  351,  354n. 

Blake,  Capt.  Charles,  246. 

Blessing  of  the  Bay,  14. 


Blu&  Jacket,  345,  362. 

Boit,  Capt.  John,  Jr.,  73-76,  171; 

quoted,  50. 

Bombay,  trade  with,  45,  85-87. 
Boot  and  Shoe  trade,  21,  267,  288, 

298,  366. 
Bordman,  William,  Jr.,  57n.,  247, 

261;     his    mercantile    ventures, 

287-90. 
Boston,  position,  3,  6;  colonial,  20; 


391 


INDEX 


in  1783,  35;  in  1790,  42-44; 
in  Federalist  era,  124-32;  in 
1840,  chap,  xv ;  in  clipper-ship 
era,  350,  366-69;  architecture, 
125-28,  238-40;  fisheries,  302, 
308;  harbor,  3,  6,  97,  124,  163; 
Marine  Society,  116,  132,  162- 
63,  357;  Old  State  House,  238; 
Pacific  trade,  84,  chaps,  iv-vi, 
xvii,  368;  population,  20,  22, 
124,137;  shipbuilding,  103,  237- 
38,  chap,  xxii  passim;  shipping, 
189,  215,  225-28,  252,  284,  294- 
95:  347-50,  366-69;  society, 
128-32,  239-40;  statistics,  376- 
78;  wharves,  21,  127,  229-30. 

Boston,  55,  iO7n. 

Boston  Light,  19. 

Boston  Light,  345. 

Boundbrook,  3 ion. 

Bourne,  Jonathan,  319. 

Bowditch,  Nathaniel,  113-16, 163. 

Bradlee,  Josiah,  57n.,  130, 3i8n. 

Breeze,  247. 

Brewster,  208,  301. 

Brewster,  Capt.  George,  358. 

Briggs,  Enos,  80,  81,  100,  102. 

Briggs,  E.  &  H.  O.,  344-45- 

Brimmer,  Herman,  56. 

Britannia,  234. 

British  East  India  Company,  52, 
65,  276-78. 

Bromfield,  John,  112,  189. 

Brown,  Capt.  Charles  H.,  35i,354n. 

Brutus,  200. 

Bryant  &  Sturgis,  69,  Il6,  260, 
262-63,  266-68. 

Bucanier,  154. 

Bulfinch,  Charles,  42,  460.,  125-30, 
238. 

Buoys,  163. 

Burma,  92. 

Cabot,  George,  merchant,  22,  37, 
154;  Senator,  134,  165,  167; 
quoted,  174, 191. 

Cadet,  9 in. 

Calcutta,  early  trade  with,  84,  85- 
89,  in,  139,  180;  during  war, 
203;  trade  from  1815  to  1830, 
218,  223,  288;  from  beginning  of 
ice  trade  to  Civil  War.  279-85, 
368. 


California,  fur  trade,  59-60;  hide 
trade,  266-69;  forty-niners,  331- 
38;  clearances  from  Boston,  333, 
338;  trade  with,  1850-55,  chap- 
ters xxi,  xxii  passim,  367;  grain 
trade,  368. 

Calumet,  194. 

Canada,  trade  with,  366-68. 

Canoes,  147. 

Canton,  description,  64,  65.  See 
China  trade. 

Canton  Packet,  241. 

Cape  Ann,  2;  fisheries,  142-43, 
149,  302,  308-12,  375;  in  War 
of  1812,  207. 

Cape  Cod,  4,  24;  Colonial,  20,  30; 
Federalist,  145-50,  162-64;  dur- 
ing war,  198,  203,  206-09;  after 
1815,  300-02,  310-13. 

Cape  of  Good  Hope,  44;  smuggling 
trade,  68,  73,  86,  87;  later  trade, 
368. 

Cape  Horn,  47,  53,  74,  97. 

Cape  Verde  Islands,  54,  83,  139, 
141. 

Caravan,  89,  90. 

Carnes,  Capt.  Jonathan,  90. 

Carney,  Osgood,  281. 

Caroline,  7on. 

Carpenter,  Capt.  Benjamin,  86,  87. 

Catherine,  194. 

Chariot  of  Fame,  362. 

Charles  Bartlett,  243. 

Charlestown,  103,  233,  237,  283-84. 

Charles  W.  Morgan,  I57n.,  315. 

Charmer,  368. 

Chatham,  146,  147-50,  301. 

Chebacco  boats,  143,  147,  305. 

China  trade,  origin,  44-50;  of 
Federalist  Period,  chapter  vi, 
I4on.,  165-66,  180,  192-93;  typi- 
cal cargo,  82 ;  in  War  of  1812, 203- 
05;  from  1815  to  1860,  218-220, 
273-79,  358-59;  mentioned,  223, 
254,  266,  271,  366. 

Civil  War,  effect  of,  369-70. 

Clapp,  Joseph  C.,  2&9n. 

Clark,  Capt.  Arthur  H.,  355; 
quoted,  I37n.,  233n.,  344n., 
346n.,  348n.,  36in. 

Clark,  Benjamin  C.,  247-48,  293. 

Cleopatra's  Barge,  262-63. 

Cleveland,  George,  183. 


392 


INDEX 


Cleveland,  Richard  J.,  60,  73. 

Cleveland,  William,  88. 

Cleveland,  Mrs.  William,  220,  258. 

Clipper  ships,  definition,  328, 348n. ; 
origin,  329-30,  339;  history  of, 
chap,  xxii;  construction,  349; 
crews,  352-57;  cost,  359,  362, 
36sn.;  officers,  350-51;  owners, 
347-49;  races,  345,  356,  358; 
speed,  see  Record  sailing  passages. 

Coal  trade,  297-98. 

Coasting  trade,  early,  15,  17,  82, 
154;  after  1830, 297-98, 300, 354. 
See  Packet  lines. 

Cobb,  Capt.  Elijah,  146,  172-73, 
208. 

Codfish,  trade  in,  13-14,  19,  177, 
309;  price,  305n.;  methods  of 
catching,  135,  143,  306,  312. 

Codman,  Capt.  John,  357. 

Coffee  trade,  92-93, 271, 295n.,  366. 

Coffin,  Sir  Isaac,  159. 

Cogswell,  Joseph  W.,  1 12. 

Cohasset,  4, 105, 108, 144, 164,  246, 
305. 

Collier,  Capt.  James,  297. 

Collins,  Capt.  John,  207. 

Columbia,  first  voyage,  46-49,  no, 
125;  return,  43,  44,  49;  second 
voyage,  49-51;  cargoes,  56-57, 
66;  mentioned,  73,  74. 

Columbia  River,  discovery,  50; 
attempt  to  settle,  58,  261;  sal- 
mon, 261  n. 

Commerce,  154. 

Constitution,  175,  197-98. 

Cook,  Capt.  James,  91. 

Cornd,  Michele,  98. 

Cotton,  Solomon,  56. 

Cotton  trade,  294,  296-99. 

Cottons,  domestic,  trade  in,  215, 
264-67,  269,  276,  287-88;  India, 
trade  in,  87-89,  149,  283. 

Coytmore,  Capt.  Thomas,  16. 

Cressy,  Capt.  Josiah  P.,  340-41, 
35i,  356. 

Crowninshield,  Capt.  Benjamin, 93. 

Crowninshield,  Benjamin  W.,  93, 
202. 

Crowninshield,  Caspar,  21. 

Crowninshield,  George,  85,  93. 

Crowninshield,  George,  Jr.,  123, 
200,  247,  262. 


Crowninshield,  Capt.  Jacob,  85, 184. 
Cuming,  Robert,  33. 
Cunard  Line,  234,  252. 
Cunningham,  Frederic  and  Lewis, 

293-94- 

Currier,  John,  Jr.,  330. 
Curtis,  J.  O.,  346-47. 
Curtis,  Paul,  344,  346,  3650. 
Gushing,  Caleb,  216,  279. 
Gushing,   John   P.,   66,   240,   247, 

273-74. 
Cygnet,  248. 

Dabney  family,  193,  293. 

Dalton,  Tristram,  164. 

Dana,  Richard  H.,  Jr.,  227,  245, 

256,  267-68. 
Daniel  Webster,  331. 
David  Brown,  358. 
Davis,  R.  &  J.,  57n. 
Dearborn,  H.  A.  S.,  l63n.,  263. 
Defender,  350. 
Defrees,  Henry  I.,  200. 
Delano,  Capt.  Amasa,  45,  62. 
Delano  family,  21,  in,  182. 
Democracy,  23,  24. 
Derby,  Charles,  73. 
Derby,  Elias  Hasket,  47-49;  fleet, 

96;  mentioned,  80,  83,  121,  166, 

175- 
Derby,  Capt.  E.  H.,  Jr.,  113,  175- 

77- 

Derby,  John,  47n.,  57n. 
Derby,  Richard,  22,  28. 
Devereux  family,  21,  183. 
Dexter,  Timothy,  154. 
Doane,  Elisha,  25. 
Dominis,  Capt.  John,  2610. 
Donald  McKay,  363-64. 
Dorchester,  13. 
Dories,  148,  248. 
Dorr,  Capt.  Ebenezer,  Jr.,  59. 
Dover,  233. 
Dreadnought,  346;    records,  233n., 

346n.- 

Dream,  247. 
Dumaresq,  Capt.  Philip,  340,  351, 

358. 

Dun  fish,  13,  303. 
Duxbury,    shipbuilding,    19,    290; 

fisheries,  144-45. 


East  Boston,  237,  350. 


393 


INDEX 


East  Dennis,  346. 

East-Indiamen  of  1840,  254-56. 

East  India  trade;  prestige,  285; 
see  Batavia,  Bombay,  Calcutta, 
Cape  of  Good  Hope,  China, 
Mauritius,  Sumatra. 

Ebeling,  Professor,  179. 

Eclipse,  60. 

Eldridge,  Capt.  Asa,  362. 

Eliza,  barque,  334;  ketch,  100;  ship, 
91;  of  New  York,  183. 

Elizabeth  Islands,  8,  149. 

Eliza  Hardy,  brig,  185. 

Embargo,  Jefferson's,  140,  186-92; 
Madison's,  206. 

Emerald,  232-33,  283n. 

Emerson,  R.  W.,  quoted,  41,  226, 
233n.,  257;  Mediterranean  voy- 
age, 286-87:  on  whaling,  315. 

Emmons,  Nathaniel  H.,  297. 

Empress  of  China,  44,  45. 

England,  financial  relations  with, 
168-69,  195;  diplomatic  rela- 
tions, 173-74,  184,  1 86,  193,  195, 
213,  279;  Navigation  Acts,  328; 
rivalry  in  oriental  trade,  276-78, 
358-59;  sea-power,  178;  trade 
with,  232-35. 

Enterprise,  86. 

Esperanto,  306. 

Essex,  144,  306. 

Essex,  frigate,  100,  ill,  173,  203; 
ship,  92,  184-86. 

Essex  Junto,  167,  175. 

Everett,  Edward,  261,  283. 

Express,  306. 

Fairhaven,   igon.,  316-17. 

Falkland  Islands,  54,  61,  74. 

Fall  River,  shipping,  378. 

Falmouth,  209,  316. 

Fame,  privateer,  200;    ship,  loo. 

Faneuil,  Peter,  19. 

Fanny,  249n. 

Farming,  relation  to  shipping,  1 8, 

35-37- 

Federal  Constitution,  39. 

Federalism,  definition,  160;  rela- 
tion to  shipping,  chap,  xii,  poli- 
tics, 191-214,  passim. 

Fiji  Islands,  trade  with,  94,  219-20. 

Fisheries,  origin,  9,  12,  13;  after 
the  Revolution,  31 ;  of  federalist 


period,  chapter  x;  188;  after 
1815,  chapter  xix;  bounties, 
134-35,  310-11;  statistics,  375. 

Fishermen,  136-37;  of  Marble- 
head,  20,  136-40;  of  Beverly, 
141,  303-04;  of  Cape  Ann,  143, 
309;  of  Cape  Cod,  146-47,  310; 
of  Swampscott,  303;  casualties, 
311;  costume,  I37n. 

Fishing  vessels,  19,  31,  135,  247, 
305-06,  312. 

Flora,  270. 

Flying  Cloud,  341-42,  355-56. 

Flying  Fish,  355. 

Folger,  Capt.  B.  T.,  317. 

Forbes,  J.  Murray  (i),  271;  (2), 
241,  246. 

Forbes,  Ralph  Bennet,  170. 

Forbes,  Robert  Bennet,  241-47, 
266,271,277,350;  quoted,  I37n., 

357- 

Foreign  exchange,  168-69. 

Forrester,  Simon,  80,  119. 

Fox,  Capt.  Philip,  232-33. 

France,  trade  with,  35,  139,  169- 
72,  185,  after  1820,  258,  297, 
299;  influence  of  Revolution  and 
wars,  169,  173,  181-84,  195-96; 
spoliations,  175. 

Francis,  98. 

Frank  Atwood,  306. 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  26. 

Franklin,  brig,  219;  ship,  183. 

Fur  trade,  see  Northwest  Coast. 

Galapagos  Islands,  54,  158. 

Gale,  William  Alden,  266. 

Game-Cock,  339,  349. 

Gardner,  Capt.  G.  W.,  316. 

Garrison,  W.  L.,  34,  216,  226. 

General  Pickering,  30. 

George,  ship,  218-19;   snow,  171. 

Georges  Bank,  308. 

Gerry,  Elbridge,  28,  138. 

Gibaut,  Capt.  John,  89,  92,  163. 

Glidden  &  Williams,  347n.,  348. 

Glide,  220. 

Glory  of  the  Seas,  342,  365. 

Gloucester,  colonial,  8,  9,  14,  142; 
commerce  and  fishing,  142-44, 
179;  294n.,  302,  308-12;  popu- 
lation, 302,  312;  statistics,  375- 
78. 


394 


INDEX 


Goddard,  Nathaniel,  129,  205. 

Golden  Light,  348. 

Gore,  Christopher,  127-28,  132, 
153,  167. 

Grace,  182. 

Grand  Turk,  privateer  brig,  201- 
02;  ship  (i),  35,  45;  (2),  80,  96. 

Gray,  Robert,  master  of  Lady 
Washington,  47;  of  Columbia, 
43-44,  47-57;  of  James,  181. 

Gray,  William,  86,  ill,  182;  fleet, 
83,  96,  119;  supports  embargo, 
190;  Russian  trade,  194;  on 
impressment,  108,  196;  and 
Constitution,  197. 

Great  Republic,  361-62. 

Green,  Capt.  Nathan,  201. 

Greene,  Benjamin,  Jr.,  56. 

Greenfield,  368. 

Griffeths,  John  W.,  329. 

Griffin,  246. 

Grimes,  Capt.  Eliah,  265. 

Grinnell,  Minturn  &  Co.,  341. 

Hale,  Samuel  B.,  270. 

Haley,  Lady,  61. 

Hall,  Samuel,  237,  339-40;  earliest 

vessels,    277,    293n.,    306,    329; 

clipper  ships,  339-40,  344. 
Hamburg,  trade  with,  172,  178-79. 
Hamilton,    Alexander,     160,    and 

shipping,  164,  1 66,  167,  1 68,  164- 

68  passim,  175. 
Hammond,  Asa,  56. 
Hancock,  49. 

Hancock,  John,  28,  39,  44. 
Hanover,  21,  103,  231. 
Harriet,  44. 

Hartford  Convention,  210-1 1. 
Haswell,  William,  94. 
Hatch,  Crowell,  46n.,   171. 
Hawaiian  Islands,  early  trade  with, 

44, 59.  75, 78;  in  War  of  1812, 204; 

Missionaries,   261;    later  trade, 

262-66,  289;   whaling,  262,  264, 

321-23- 
Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  57n.,  218, 

223. 

Hayden  &  Cudworth,  344,  346. 
Hayti,  see  West  Indies. 
Heard,  Augustine,  89-90,  101,  283; 

China  trade,  274-77. 
Hemenway,  Augustus,  271. 


Henry,  85,  115. 
Herald  (i),  87-88;    (2),  233. 
Herald  of  the  Morning,  339n.,  344. 
Hercules,  86,  io7n. 
Heredia,  Jose"-Maria  de,  quoted,  16. 
Hide  trade,  222,  266-69. 
Higgins,  John,  338. 
Higginson,  Stephen,  147,  167,  170. 
Hindu,  101. 

Hingham,  44,  180,  231,  302. 
Holland,  trade  with,  iSgn. 
Holmes'  Hole,  see  Vineyard  Haven. 
Honduras,  trade  with,  19,  287. 
Honest  Tom,  185. 

Honolulu,  in  1830,  264;  see  Hawaii. 
Hood,  J.  M.  &  Co.,  346. 
Hoogly  River,  88. 
Hooper,  Robert,  22, 123, 138. 
Hooper,  Robert  C.,  140,  217. 
Hope,  brig,  188;  brigantine,  49,  54, 
203;    of  New  York,  45;   slaver, 

33- 

Hoskins,  John,  73. 
Houqua,  65. 

Howe,  Capt.  Octavius,  365. 
Howe,  Dr.  O.  T.,  quoted,  333. 
Howe,  Capt.  Prince,  i63n. 
Howes,  Osborne,  146,  272,  349. 
Howland,  Isaac,  Jr.,  319. 
Howland,  James,  2d.,  74. 
Hoyt,  Lewis,  57. 
Humane  Society,  163-64. 
Hunnewell,  James,  262-65. 
Hussey  &  Macy,  3i8n. 

lasigi,  Joseph,  292-93. 

Ice  trade,  279-84,  298,  366. 

He  de  France,  see  Mauritius. 

Impressment,  108,  196-97. 

Industry,  155. 

Ingraham,  Capt.  Joseph,  49, 54, 203. 

Inore,  265. 

Insurance,  Marine,  origin,  20;    in 

Revolution,  30;   Companies  and 

offices,  131,  132,  159,  i68n.,  301; 

rates,  i68n.,   I75n.,  2O2n.,  254; 

at  Calcutta,  88. 
Ipswich,  2,  14,  144,  378. 
Ireson,  Capt.  Benjamin,  140-41. 
Irish,  immigration,  21,  22,  107,  243, 

249;  seamen,  107;  famine,  242- 

43- 
Irving,  Washington,  202. 


395 


INDEX 


Jackson,  Capt.  Henry,  112. 

Jackson,  Patrick  T.,  1 12,  214. 

Jackson,  Robert  E.,  345. 

Jacob  Jones,  202,  204-05. 

James  Baines,  343,  363-64. 

James  Ingersoll  Day,  249. 

Jamestown,  242-43. 

Jane,  172. 

Japan,  trade  with,  182-83. 

Jasper,  286-87. 

Java  Head,  67,  84,  100,  342;  record 
runs,  100. 

Jay's  Treaty,  174. 

Jeejeebhoy,  Jamsetjee,  282. 

Jefferson,  ship,  62;  yacht,  123,  200. 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  134,  167;  pol- 
icy, 183-86;  embargo,  187-92; 
gunboats,  207. 

Jenkins,  Weston,  209. 

Jewitt,  John,  55. 

John  Bertram,  345,  348. 

John  Gilpin,  344. 

Joshua  Bates,  330. 

Joy,  Benjamin,  57n.,  85. 

Kamehameha,  I,  II,  III,  204,  262- 

64. 

Kelley,  H.J.,26i. 
Kelley,  William  and  Daniel,  24gn. 
Kendrick,  Capt.  John,  47,  55,  59, 

182. 

Kingston,  in,  144. 
Knight,  Enoch,  219. 

Lady  Washington,  47,  59,  182. 

Lagoda,  319. 

Lamb,  J.  &  T.,  50,  sin.,  no. 

Lambert,  Jonathan,  94. 

Lamson,  Capt.  Z.  G.,  107,  149. 

Larcom,  Lucy,  quoted,  162,  217. 

Leander,  218. 

Lechmere,  Thomas,  85. 

Lee,  Henry,  214. 

Lelia  Byrd,  60. 

Lewis,  Rev.  Mr.,  149. 

Lidia,  177. 

Light  Horse,  48,  83. 

Lighthouses,  161-63. 

Lightning,  343,  363-64. 

Liverpool,  packet  lines  and  trade, 

232-35,  288,  299. 
Liverpool  Packet,  i4On. 
Lloyd,  James,  167,  197. 


Lodge,  John  E.,  338,  348. 

Longfellow,  quoted,  254. 

Loring  Brothers,  181,  26gn. 

Loring,  George,  180. 

Loring,  Harrison,  369^ 

Levering,  J.,  57n. 

Lovett,  John,  218-19. 

Low,  A.  A.  &  Brothers,  217,  339. 

Low,  John,  150. 

Lowell,  John,  108,  132,  167,  210. 

Lumber  trade,  colonial,  12,  13,  19; 
with  South  America,  182,  216, 
269-71;  coasting,  231,  298. 

Lydia,  94,  95- 

Lyman,  George,  58,  72,  14011.  , 

Lyman,  Theodore,  69. 

Mclntire,  Samuel,  120-21. 

Mclntire,  Capt.  Samuel,  83. 

McKay,  Donald,  early  life,  330-31; 
first  clippers,  341-44;  character, 
342;  supremacy,  344n.;  later 
clippers,  358-65;  death,  371. 

McKay,  Capt.  Lauchlan,  359-60. 

Mackay,  Mungo,  57n. 

Mackerel,  14,  305;  methods  of 
catching,  306-08,  312. 

McLane,  John,  205. 

Madagascar,  trade  with,  17,  222. 

Madagascar,  281. 

Madeira,  trade  with,  13,  19,  87; 
famine,  242;  wine,  87,  129,  131, 
293-94. 

Madison,  James,  194-206,  passim. 

Magee,  Bernard,  62. 

Magee,  Capt.  James,  21,  45,  48-50, 
78,  83. 

Magee,  Capt.  W.  T.,  l4On. 

Magoun,  Joshua,  104. 

Magotin,  Thatcher,  102-03. 

Maine,  2,  18;  fishing,  9,  305;  sail- 
ing packets,  231;  shipbuilding, 
103,  255,  256n.,  293n.;  shipping, 
188,  215-16,  271,  370;  steam- 
boats, 236. 

Maine,  236. 

Malaga,  181,  287. 

Manchester,  24,  245. 

Manila,  trade  with,  94,  223,  275. 

Manufacturing,  after  Revolution, 
37;  after  War  of  1812,  214,  226- 
28,  298,  367. 

Marblehead,  settlement,  13,  colo- 


396 


INDEX 


nial  prosperity,  23;  Federal 
period,  48,  109,  136-41,  179,  190; 
War  of  1812,  199,  208;  period 
1815-40,  commerce,  216-17;  fish- 
eries, 304;  shipping,  378. 

Margaret  (i),  50,  10711.;  (2),  183. 

Maria,  1570. 

Marion,  316. 

Marquesas  Islands,  54,  203,  265. 

Marshall,  Chief  Justice,  197-98. 

Marshall,  Josiah,  129,  260-65. 

Martinique,  see  West  Indies. 

Mary  Glover,  328,  347. 

Massachusetts  (i),  52,  io7n.,  114; 
(2),  183;  steamboat,  235. 

Massachusetts  Bay,  6. 

Massachusetts-Bay,  Colony  of,  10- 
18. 

Massachusetts-Bay,  Province  of, 
18 

Mastiff,  342,  349. 

Mattapoisett,  105,  316. 

Mauritius,  trade  with,  73,  75,  86, 
170-71. 

Maury,  Lieut.  M.  F.f  358,  36m., 

363- 

Mayflower,  dimensions,  I5n.;  voy- 
age, 8,  10. 

Mayo,  Capt.  Jeremiah,  116. 

Mayo,  Capt.  M.  H.,  208. 

Medford,  shipbuilding,  14,  102-03, 
236,  254-56^,  293n.,  296;  clip- 
per ships,  344n.,  346,  355. 

Mediterranean,  trade  with,  colo- 
nial, 13-14;  Federalist  period, 
176-77,  194;  after  1815,  286-94. 

Melville,  Herman,  quoted,  227, 
317,  323,  325-26. 

Mentor,  77n.,  262. 

Merchant,  definition,  24;  colonial 
life,  25;  of  Federalist  Salem,  122; 
of  Federalist  Boston,  128-32; 
of  later  Boston,  239-41, 244, 285, 
290. 

Mermaid,  247. 

Merrill,  Orlando  B.,  102. 

Merrimac  River,  2,  151;  shipbuild- 
ing, 101-02,  152,  255,  25611.  See 
Newburyport. 

Merrimack,  155. 

Merritt,  Dr.  Samuel,  337. 

Merry  Quaker,  105. 

Mexican,  270. 


Middlesex  Canal,  216,  236. 
Minerva,  104. 
Minot's  Light,  4, 164,  311. 
Mississippi  valley,  trade  with,  252, 

298. 

Mitter,  Rajkissen,  282. 
Mocha,  trade  with,  92,  93,  181. 
Morgan,  Charles  W.,  3i8n.,  323n. 
Morgan,  Junius  S.,  218. 
Mount  Vernon,  of  Salem,  98,  175- 

77;  of  New  York,  104. 

Nahant,  123,  236, 244-48. 

Nancy,  155. 

Nantucket,  description,  5,  15,  159; 
settlement,  155-56;  lighthouses, 
i68n.;  population,  315;  steam- 
boats, 236;  forty-niners,  333; 
statistics,  375,  378;  War  of  1812 ; 
208;  whaling,  early,  20,  31,  156, 
of  Federalist  period,  157-59; 
after  1815,  314-17- 

Nantucket  South  Shoals,  7,  164. 

Natchez,  100. 

Naushon,  246. 

Nautilus,  242. 

Navigation,  113-17;  aids  to,  161- 
64. 

Neptune,  221. 

Neptune's  Car,  351, 

New  Bedford,  6,  156,  314-16; 
commerce,  179-80,  294n. ;  dur- 
ing War  of  1812, 199,  207;  popu- 
lation, 316-17;  snipping  statis- 
tics, iSgn.,  377-78;  society,  319: 
whaling,  31,  157,  chap,  xx; 
forty-niners,  333. 

Newburyport,  2,  151-54;  fisher- 
ies, 152,  303;  commerce,  in 
Federalist  period,  108,  151-55, 
191,  216,  294n.;  population,  151, 
216;  shipbuilding,  101-02,  189, 
338»  349;  War  of  1812,  199,  207; 
after  war,  statistics,  377-78. 

New  Orleans,  trade  with,  298-99, 
365,  369;  statistics,  376. 

New  World,  331. 

New  York,  44;  competition  with 
Massachusetts  in  China  trade, 
44.  275-76;  in  shipping,  etc., 
188-89,  215-17,  225-27,  252, 
29 1»  369;  privateering,  199;  com- 
parative statistics,  376-78;  clip- 


397 


INDEX 


per  ships,  329-30,  338,  344-45, 
358. 

News  Boy,  293. 

Nichols,  Capt.  George,  120. 

Nichols,  Capt.  Ichabod,  83,  199. 

Nightingale,  348,  350. 

Nootka  Sound,  47,  57. 

North  Bend,  258. 

Northern  Light,  clipper  ship,  339n., 
345,356;  yacht,  248. 

North  River,  4,  47;  shipbuilding, 
103-05,  292n.,  295,  305. 

North  Shore,  defined,  3;  summer 
estates,  245-46;  fishing,  375. 

Northwest  Coast  of  America,  54; 
origin  of  fur  trade,  46-51 ;  meth- 
ods, 52-58,  60;  Indians,  55-58, 
75;  prestige,  77;  conclusion, 
260-61. 

O'Cain,  Capt.  Joseph,  60,  6l. 

Ocean  Monarch,  330. 

Olyphant  &  Co.,  277-78. 

Opium  trade,   181,  277-79. 

Oregon  Colonization  Society,  261. 

Orient,  139. 

Orne,  Capt.  Joseph,  92. 

Osceola,  247. 

Osmanli,  293. 

Otis,  H.  G.,  127,  132,  160,  174. 

Otter,  59,  62. 

Owhyhee,  26 in. 

Packet-lines,  sail,  231-35, 300, 330- 

31,  368. 

Panic  of  1857,  368. 
Parker,  Dr.  Peter,  273. 
Parkman,  Samuel,  56,  87. 
Parsons,  Ebenezer,  181,  205. 
Patent,  236. 
Patten,  Mrs.  Mary  (Brown),  351- 

52. 

Peabody,  Francis,  284. 
Peabody,  George,  217-18. 
Peabody,  Henry  W.,  368. 
Peabody,     Joseph,     98,     218-20; 

China  trade,  223,  274,  277. 
Pearl,  70-72. 
Pepper  trade,  90-93, 115,  219,  288- 

90. 
Perkins  &  Co.,  66,  202,  261,  273, 

277. 
Perkins,  Elizabeth,  49. 


Perkins,  James,  178. 

Perkins,  J.  &  T.  H.,  66,  113,  170, 

I74n.,  180-81,  183,  2O2n.,  205. 
Perkins,  T.  Handasyd,  49,  83,  129, 

170,  172,  211,  226,  230. 
Pew,  Capt.  John,  307. 
Phantom,  355. 
Philadelphia,  88,  298,  376. 
Philippine  Islands,  94.    See  Manila. 
Pickering,  Timothy,  160,  165,  167, 

^  174-75,  191- 

Pickman,  Benjamin,  25,  87n. 

Pickman,  Dudley  L.,  181. 

Pierce,    Jerathmeel,    120. 

Pilgrim  (i),  185;   (2),  256. 

Pilot-boats,  247-49. 

Pinkies,  305. 

Pirates,  20,  67,  112,  270. 

Plum  Island,  2,  151,  156,  i6in., 
164. 

Plymouth,  settlement,  4,  10;  fish- 
eries, 144-45,  3°4;  neutral  trade, 
185,  188,  i89n.,  191,  in  War  of 
1812,  203,  208;  commerce,  231, 
294n.;  statistics,  378. 

Pomeroy,  Samuel,  26<jn. 

Pook,  Samuel  H.,  293n.,  339,  362, 
36911. 

Porter,  Capt.  David,  53,  100,  203. 

Portland,  Maine,  189,  231. 

Portugal,  early  trade  with,  13;  in 
Federalist  period,  83,  139,  178, 

179,  iSgn. 

Pratt,  Southward,  105. 

Pray,  Benjamin  C.,  368. 

Preble,  Ebenezer  and  Henry,  87, 

1 80. 

Prince,  Capt.  Henry,  94. 

Prince,  Capt.  Job,  52. 

Privateering,  colonial,  20;  revo- 
lution, 29,  30;  War  of  1812,  199- 
202. 

Provincetown,  4,  10;  saltworks, 
145;  population,  146;  fishing, 
300-01,  313. 

Quallah-Battoo,  219. 
Quarantine,  248. 
Queen  of  Clippers,  345. 
Quincy,  Josiah,  128,  167,  198,  237, 
242. 


Race  Horse,  293. 


398 


INDEX 


Radius,  112. 

Railroads,  230,  30411.,  308,  312-13, 

3*5- 

Rainbow,  329-30. 

Rambler,  204. 

Randolph,  Edward,  17. 

Rappahannock,  25611. 

Rasselas,  289. 

Raven,  schooner,  139,  177;  yacht, 
247-48. 

Rawson,  Dr.  Franklin,  182. 

Record  sailing  passages,  100;  trans- 
atlantic, 176,  232-33,  235,  362- 
64;  Australian,  364;  Boston  and 
New  York  to  California,  338, 
340,  341,  344-45,  355,  358;  Bos- 
ton to  equator,  34in.;  Canton 

;  to  Java,  342;  San  Francisco  to 
Honolulu,  341  n.;  days'  runs,  loo; 
343,  360-62,  364;  knots  per 
hour,  100,  101,  343,  364. 

Recovery,  92,  in. 

Red  Jacket,  343,  362. 

Reggio,  Nicholas,  292-93. 

Reindeer,  354n. 

Reporter,  364. 

Rich,  Isaac,  302. 

Rich,  Capt.  Richard,  307. 

Richardson,  Nathaniel,  123. 

Rio  de  Janeiro,  trade  with,  181, 
269-71,  281,  293. 

Roanoke,  335. 

Robertson,  John  M.,  233. 

Rockport,  143,  302. 

Rogers,  Nathaniel  L.,  219. 

Romance  of  the  Seas,  342,  348,  358. 

Romp,  306. 

Ropes,  George,  98. 

Ropes,  Capt.  Joseph,  92. 

Ropes,  William,  295-96. 

Ropes,  William  H.,  296.] 

Rousseau,  i57n. 

Roux,  Antoine,  98. 

Rowe,  John,  134. 

Rubber  trade,  222-23. 

Rubicon,  29gn. 

Rufus  King,  185. 

Rum  trade,  19,  154,  221,  263,  287, 
366. 

Russell  &  Co.,  242,  273,  277-79, 

329- 

Russell,  Thomas,  129. 
Russia,  trade  with,  see  Baltic. 


Sachem,  266. 

"Sacred  Codfish,"  134. 

St.  Paul,  223. 

St.  Paul's  Island,  61,  114. 

St.  Petersburg,  296. 

Salem,  in  Revolution,  30;  in  1790, 
79;  oriental  trade  to  1812,  45- 
49,  73,  chap,  vii,  decline,  217-24, 
274-78;  architecture,  119-22; 
East  India  Marine  Society,  117, 
199;  forty-niners,  334;  harbor, 
81,  96,  115,  162;  ropemakers, 
101;  seamen,  109,  in,  218; 
shipbuilding,  8l,  96-101;  ship- 
ping, 82-84,  189,  191,  217,  366, 
statistics,  377-78;  society,  122- 

23- 

Salem,  177. 

Salisbury,  S.  &  S.,  57n. 

Sally,  brig,  116;  ship,  203. 

Saltmaking,  145,  301. 

Samuels,  Capt.  Samuel,  346. 

San  Francisco,  60,  327,  335-38. 

San  Francisco,  335. 

Sandwich,  301. 

Sargent,  Capt.  H.  J.,  Jr.,  355~56- 

Sargent  family,  22,  142,  211,  355. 

Scituate,  settlement,  4,  13;  fisher- 
ies, 144;  shipbuilding,  see  North 
River. 

Seafort,  14. 

Sealing,  61,  62. 

Seamen,  colonial,  16-17;  of  Feder- 
alist period,  105-12;  in  North- 
west trade,  76-78;  of  1815-40, 
256-60;  of  clipper  ships,  352-57. 

Sea  Mew,  293. 

Sears,  Capt.  J.  Henry,  347. 

Sea  Witch,  338,  340. 

Shaw,  R.  G.,  287. 

Shaw,  Samuel,  45,  46,  52,  66,  85. 

Shays's  Rebellion,  36,  37. 

Shell-fish,  i^j.8,  301-02. 

Ship,  definition,  328. 

Shipbuilding,  colonial,  14,  15,  17, 
19;  after  war,  37;  of  Federalist 
period,  80,  96-105,  166,  191;  of 
period  1815-40,  254-56,  292-93, 
296;  clipper  ships,  343,  and  chap, 
xxii,  passim;  after  1855,  365; 
size  of  vessels,  256n.,  296,  361. 

Shipmasters,  16,  113-14;  in  North- 
west trade,  68-72;  youthful- 


399 


INDEX 


ness,  73~74;    of  1840,  260;    of 
clippers,  350-51,  355. 
Shipwrecks,    97,    149-50,    162-64, 

3".  356. 

Shiverick,  D.  &  A.,  346. 
Shoemaking,  217,  303-04. 
Silsbee,  Nathaniel,  73,  87,  88,  98. 
Silsbee,  Stone  &  Pickman,  217. 
Slave  trade,  19,  32-34,  324. 
Small,  Capt.  Z.  H.,  313. 
Smith,  Capt.  John,  8,  9. 
Smyrna,    181,   222,   277-78,   291- 

o93* 

Smyrna,  289-90. 

Smyrniote,  293. 

Snow,  Capt.  Loum,  180. 

Somerset,  346,  368. 

South  Africa,  trade  with,  367-68. 

South  America,  trade  with,  origin, 
19,  62;  of  Napoleonic  period, 
181-82;  after  1815,  269-72; 
mentioned,  215-16,  222-23,  262» 
283,  287-90,  297,  366;  ice  trade, 
281. 

Southern  States,  trade  with,  17,  32, 
231-32,  252,  280-81,  288,  297- 

99- 

South  Sea  Islands,  see  Fiji,  Hawaii, 
Marquesas,  Tahiti. 

South  Shore,  defined,  3;  fisheries, 
144,302,304,375. 

Sovereign  of  the  Seas,  327,  359-62. 

Spain,  trade  with,  colonial,  9,  13; 
Federalist  period,  83,  139,  177, 
180-81,  185,  205;  see  Mediter- 
ranean. 

Sparrow-Hawk,  I5n. 

Sprague,  Capt.  Caleb,  258. 

Sprague,  Peleg,  352,  355. 

Stag-Hound,  341,  348,  361. 

Starbuck,  Capt.  Charles,  325. 

Starlight,  345,  348. 

Stars  and  Stripes,  248. 

States,  61. 

Steam  navigation,  242,  324-36,  369. 

Stephen,  William,  14,  15. 

Sturgis,  Russell,  274;  quoted,  65. 

Sturgis,  Capt.  William,  69-70; 
as  merchant,  211,  247,  260; 
quoted,  57-58- 

Sumatra,  trade  with,  90,  91,  219, 
288-90. 

Sunda  Straits,  68. 


Supercargoes,  45,  112-13. 
Surinam,  trade  with,  19,  142,  146, 

309. 

Surprise,  339-40. 
Suter,  Capt.  John,  7O~73,  77n.,  78, 

262,  289. 
Swampscott,    148,   245,   248,   303, 

306. 
Sylph,  247. 

Tahiti,  265. 

Tamaamaah,  204. 

Tariff,    on    tea,    i6sn.;    of    1816, 

214. 

Taunton  River,  5,  105. 
Taylor,  Edward  T.  (Father),  250- 

52. 

Telegraph,  306. 
Telegraph,  marine,  163,  229. 
Thaddeus,  261. 
Thomas,  George,  362. 
Thomas  Russell,  113. 
Thoreau,  Henry,  quoted,  283-84, 

300,  307. 
Thorndike,   Israel,  83,  87n.,   no, 

119,  179,  211. 
Timor,  220. 
Tonnage,    method   of   computing, 

I4n.;  duties  on,  166. 
Townsend,  Capt.  Penn,  114. 
Train,  Enoch,  296,  330-31,  341. 
Trask,  Capt.  Richard,  296. 
Trial,  16. 

Tristan  de  Cunha,  94. 
Tsar,  265. 

Tucker,  Charles  R.,  325n. 
Tudor,  Frederic,  244,  280-83 
Turner,  Calvin,  102. 
Turner,  Capt.  John,  16. 
Tuscany,  282. 

Unicorn,  234. 

Union,  74-76. 

Upton,  Capt.  Benjamin,  222. 

Upton,  George  B.,  348. 

Valparaiso,  trade  with,    5911.,    62, 

271,  289. 

Vancouver  Island,  74. 
Vans,  William,  gin. 
Vineyard  Haven,  7,  162,  163. 

Wages,  in  China  trade,  76,  77;  of 


400 


INDEX 


Federalist    period,    iio-n;     of 
1830,    257:     of    clipper    period, 

351-54- 

Wagon  trade,  206. 
Wales,  Thomas  B.,  295,  297. 
VVallis,  Mrs.,  220. 
War  of  1812,  195-212. 
Ward,  Capt.  William,  86. 
Wareham,    105,  207. 
Waterman,  Capt.  Bob,  100,  329, 

340- 

Waterman  &  Ewell,  293n.,  296. 

Water  Witch,  292-93. 

Wave,  247. 

Webster,  Daniel,  214,  246,  26411. 

Weld,  Wm.  F.  &  Co.,  348. 

Wellfleet,  25,  ii4n.,  148,  149,  301- 
02,  306,  313. 

Wells,  190. 

West,  Capt.  Ebenezer,  45. 

Western  Islands,  colonial  trade 
with,  13;  neutral  trade,  176,  179, 
1 80,  193;  later  trade,  293-94; 
whaling,  321-23. 

West  India  trade,  origin,  12,  17,  19; 
after  Revolution,  31,  32,  38; 
Federalist  period,  83,  84,  in, 
139,  141,  151-55,  181,  185,  188, 
iSgn.,  280;  after  1815,  216, 
280-81;  293-95,  3°9;  statistics, 
376-77. 

Weston,  Ezra,  104,  290. 

Westward  Ho!  342,  348. 

Whaling,  origin,  20;  from  Cape 
Cod,  146,  305;  from  Nantucket, 
to  1812,  156-59;  statistics,  376; 


after  1815,  chap,  xx;  crews,  158, 
322-24;  grounds,  157,  262-64, 
316-17-  'lays,'  158,  319-22; 
length  of  voyage,  323n.;  meth- 
ods, 318-26;  prices,  158,  317. 

Whampoa,  64,  205. 

Wheelwright,  William,  26gn. 

Whipple,  Jonathan,  222. 

White,  William  P.,  182. 

Whitman,  Walt,  quoted,  250-52, 
3H,.  363- 

Whittier,  J.  G.f  quoted,  2,  3,  140 
156. 

Wild  Ranger,  328,  347,  348. 

William  and  Henry,  82. 

Williams  family,  I76n. 

Winde,  Louis,  248n. 

Winged  Racer,  345. 

Winship,  Jonathan,  Jr.,  57-59,  204, 

317- 

Winship  family,  58-60. 
Winsor,  Joshua,  145. 
Winthrop,  John,  u,  12,  16. 
Winthrop  and  Mary,  142. 
Witchcraft,  339n. 
Woodbury,  Peter,  150. 
Wood's  Hole,  7,  146,  247,  300. 
Wonson,  Capt.  Samuel,  308. 

Yachting,  123,  191,  244-49. 
Yankee  race,  21,  22. 

Zanzibar,  trade  with,  222-23. 
Zephyr,  brig,  277;  ship,  220,  258. 
Zerega  &  Co.,  345n. 
Zotoff,  220. 


(gfte  Ctitirrsibe 

CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U.S.A. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY,  LOS  ANGELES 

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